Annabelle 1 Apr 2026

In 2013, James Wan’s The Conjuring introduced audiences to a lot of things: the real-life case files of Ed and Lorraine Warren, the terrifying clap-happy ghost Bathsheba, and a creepy, freckled-faced Raggedy Ann doll locked in a glass case. That doll was on screen for less than two minutes, yet she stole the entire movie.

A year later, director John R. Leonetti (Wan’s longtime cinematographer) was handed the unenviable task of expanding that two-minute legend into a full 99-minute origin story. The result, Annabelle , is a flawed but fascinating study in how to build mythology from a silent prop. Set in 1967 (before the events of The Conjuring ), the film follows Mia Form (Annabelle Wallis), a pregnant young wife living in a picture-perfect California apartment complex with her husband, John (Ward Horton). John gifts her the doll she’s been collecting: a large, soft, button-eyed Raggedy Ann. Annabelle 1

The horror begins with shocking speed. Their next-door neighbors, the Higgins, are brutally murdered by two cultists—a young man and his female companion. The police chase ends in the Form’s nursery, where the female cultist, clutching the doll, slits her own throat while bleeding onto the porcelain face of the toy. In 2013, James Wan’s The Conjuring introduced audiences