When The Conjuring came out, there was one question on everyone’s mind. What is up with that creepy Annabelle doll from the cold open? At least that’s what I assume justified this movie. It’s a low point in the Conjuring Universe and as only the 2nd movie in the group, it’s kind of amazing that they went on to make 8 more.

Let’s break down the plot and get all the story details you’ll need to understand the storied career of Annabelle. So many spoilers ahead.

Annabelle opens in the same way as the Conjuring did. Our nurse friends sit on the couch and detail all the spooky things Annabelle has done to them. Their male friend, who does not need to be at this meeting, continues to look bored about the whole thing. I wonder if anything new was even filmed for this.

After the title card, we zoom into the world’s scariest statuary. Outside of a church none-the-less. These things are spooky. Inside, the priest is giving a strangely specific sermon about how much God loves when we sacrifice for one another. Spoon feeding us some themes here, eh? We meet our main characters as they sit in the pews, thumb wrestling. Mia (Annabelle Wallis) and John (Ward Horton) could probably find better ways to pass the time, but here we are.

Mia is pregnant and appears to be due soon. There is a lot of focus on this right out of the gate. Their neighbors ask them about baby names and make jokes about child rearing. Turns out those neighbors ‘lost’ their daughter and Mia feels uncomfortable talking about the baby in front of them. I seriously do not know how she plans to keep that one on the DL. Babies are, generally, pretty noticeable.

They walk inside their house where John, has not bothered to lock the door. They live in a magical land without crime as far as he’s concerned. Mia, reasonably, tells him to start locking the door. Amazing that this guy is in med school and needs to be told not to leave the house wide open when his wife and unborn baby are alone most days.

Mia sits down to do her favorite activity. Sewing. Girl must have made an entire fall collection during this movie. She’s also doing what all the ladies do and watching horrible crime news. John thinks the TV is too loud and asks her to turn it off so he can concentrate. The sewing machine is so much louder. I couldn’t concentrate with that running the next state over. But then he mentions that she shouldn’t be listening to scary cult murders on the news because it isn’t good for the baby! He is going to be a doctor folks. And babies love the crime beat.

John is feeling overwhelmed with family life and pre-doctor life. He makes the incalculably stupid choice to tell Mia how hard this whole pregnancy thing is on him. To his credit, he realizes his mistake and apologizes but whoosh. To help smooth things over, he brings in a giant box the size of a toddler. Inside is a terrifying porcelain doll. But apparently Mia is thrilled with it. It is the last doll in a set and she’s been looking everywhere for it. John tells her they’ll be short on rent for a while because the doll was obviously far too expensive, but she smiles and adds her to the shelf.

I cannot stress enough that there are dozens of dead eyed, demon dolls all over the room. Annabelle is the largest, but not even the scariest. The doll that Mia puts her next to is far more haunted. I’m stunned they aren’t already 24 dolls deep into hauntings.

Mia and John are sleeping with the window and blinds open, facing the bedroom of the house next door. Did Annabelle do that too? We see the lights turn on in the neighbors’ room. It’s clearly a dangerous situation since we see them panic and call for the police. A figure slinks into the room and kills them both. The woman screams, waking Mia. She turns to look toward the bloody scene, but the lights are off now. I guess the killers don’t want to waste any electricity.

Mia doesn’t know what woke her but tells John. He agrees to check things out but not to call the police, since he’s not sure she really heard anything. He’ll be catastrophically wrong and we could blame him for the resulting chaos, but I think it’s on Mia for leaving the front door open and walking away from it. That’s how you get killers in your home without noticing. John runs out of the neighbor’s house covered in blood and now tells her to call police.

She runs back inside, still not closing that door, to phone the police. We see a woman walk behind her. She hangs up on the operator, which you are not supposed to do, and goes back to find John. Instead, she finds the woman who is holding Annabelle and complimenting her. How did this evil demon thing know it was here? No explanation will be provided. I guess it can sense the doll like the ring wraiths in Lord of the Rings.

A man runs up behind Mia while she’s distracted and stabs her in the side. She’s about to get it, but John gets back and fights him off. Just as it looks like John is going to lose this fight, the cops come in and shoot the man. The woman had slunk back into the nursery with the doll. She writes an A on the wall in her blood after killing herself, still holding Annabelle.

Turns out the woman was the next-door neighbor’s long-lost daughter, also named Annabelle! She and her cult boyfriend came over to kill her parents and decided to check out the house next door. Thankfully, John, Mia, and the baby are all fine. Mia is still worried about her child since they were both kinda stabbed, but John assures her everything is fine. Mia takes this moment to tell John if she starts dying in labor, he needs to save the baby over her. Maybe this PTSD filled time is not the moment to have these conversations.

That night, the two hear noises and wake up. Mia’s sewing machine starts running on its own. John grabs a baseball bat to check things out. He learned not to head into these things unarmed. But there’s nothing there and John unplugs the machine. He walks by the nursery and tries to shut the door but can’t. Because Annabelle is somehow on the floor. He picks up the doll and puts it in the rocking chair. Which is not where Mia had her, but fine, new location.

Mia’s on bedrest now, so she’s working on her sewing in bed and watching the TV. It keeps flickering and eventually turns off. She hears the rocking chair. By the time she gets to the nursery to check it out, it’s stopped. John returns home that night with a bunch of pregnancy foods and tells her he needs to go out of town for a conference in a few days. Prime time for hauntings.

Before he goes Mia, who I’m assuming has noticed that the door to the nursery keeps opening on its own, tells John she doesn’t like her Annabelle doll anymore. After that woman died holding it, she just wants it gone. John throws the doll into the trash, which never works. But in this case, it’s a highly coveted collector’s item that he spent a lot of money on. At least try selling the haunted doll. Sometimes people pay extra for that.

The detective comes over to debrief them on the case. He tells them that Annabelle, the neighbor’s daughter not the doll, was in a cult. She and her boyfriend were the murderers, and they were into occult activities. Mia is disturbed by all this information and asks the detective not to keep her updated on the case.

John puts popcorn on the stove, but seeing Mia asleep, turns it off. But CRITCALLY leaves the popcorn on the stove. The next day Mia is sewing (shocker) and John has left for his work trip. The stove mysteriously turns on by itself. Mia doesn’t hear all the hissing and popping from the kitchen since she has that machine on and is watching TV. It isn’t until the kitchen is basically in flames that she notices anything is wrong. I call bs here. Pregnancy sense of smell is over the top but even without that burning popcorn has a smell that permeates all. She should have smelled the problem long before the kitchen was done for.

She sees the flames and tries to back out of the room but falls, injuring her leg. She’s crawling toward the exit when something grabs her leg and pulls her back toward the fire. Leg pulling is this demon’s #1 favorite trick. Thankfully, the fire department shows up and rushes her off to the hospital.

John rushes into the hospital, relieved to see Mia is okay. And what a surprise she even had their baby. A girl she named Leah. Is the Mia/Leah thing confusing? Yes. Did I mix up the names 1,000 times while taking my notes on the movie? Also yes. But amazingly, everyone is fine. John even got that residency in Pasadena, so they moved into a new apartment. The other one had no kitchen, so good timing. They didn’t move very far though since they still go to the same church.

Father Perez is going on about something, something, but Leah isn’t into it. She coos like 3 times and Mia takes her out to the lobby. After church, the father takes a picture of Mia and Leah for the new members board. He is very into mom’s and says they are closer to God than anyone else. Laying it on a little thick here. But Mia jets when he brings up the death of their neighbors. She isn’t up to talking about these things.

Mia is unpacking her collection of haunted dolls and one giggles. That one is already possessed. John walks into the room as she unpacks Annabelle. He is stunned to see it, given that he threw it out. Mia assumes that it got back into a box because of the chaos after the fire. Mia, how does that make sense to you? Someone went through the trash because of the fire? Mia decides to keep her this time. She places her on a middle shelf where her enormous dress covers up like 5 dolls. I guess she didn’t like those.

Mia and Leah are napping when Annabelle decides to strike. Annabelle, the woman, walks through the room and leans over to look at baby Leah. Leah cries because babies hate ghosts and wakes Mia. By the time she opens her eyes, the woman is gone.

Mia meets a few kids in the hallway and tries to befriend them. The little boy reminds his sister not to talk to strangers or give out their address to them. So Mia heads out for a walk around town. She comes across a bookstore with some unique books. The owner of the bookstore, Evelyn (Alfre Woodard) recognizes the two because they live in the same building. She introduces herself and offers Mia a book to read to Leah.

When they come back from their walk Mia sees that the little boy from earlier left some drawings of Mia and Leah on the stairs. It’s all normal mom walking her baby around in a pram for the first few. But as she picks up more pictures, the final one shows the pram getting hit by a truck. Mia is upset and wants to tell the parents, but John is less concerned. Kids do weird crap. All the time. Usually it’s less premonition and more too much free time.

John promises to be home for dinner the next day because Mia seems very much in need of some adult interactions. Of course he doesn’t show, and she’s eating by herself with the music at concert volume. She turns it off; I assume much to the entire floors relief, and starts cleaning up. But it turns back on by itself! We see something subtle standing in the window when she walks in. She must see it too because she goes to move the curtains when a gust of wind knocks her over and a little girl runs by.

The little girl stands in the room across the hall. As the door closes, she runs through, turning into the adult Annabelle. When Mia tells John he thinks she might just be a little anxious and she loses it when she thinks he is suggesting she go to a shrink. I’m a little insulted because I love mine. But actually, John was suggesting they get counseling at the church. The session makes it seem like they are on the verge of divorce, but really Mia is just going nuts from John’s perspective. I don’t get what this was meant to accomplish.

Mia is sewing…again. John has to work overnight, but Mia has some things to put in the basement storage. She leaves Leah alone whiles she goes to their storage unit. I don’t know if this is a thing people do in apartments, but it seems like a bad idea. And of course Annabelle, the demon this time, uses this moment to attack. A pram rolls into the storage room with crying sounds coming from it. Mia sees it and walks over to investigate, but there’s no baby. Only demon hands from behind that reach out and grab her leaving an A mark on her wrist. She runs to the elevator, jamming the door close button.

The elevator keeps opening back to the basement. After several times of this, she makes a run for the stairs. While climbing, she hears and then sees the demon behind her. They shouldn’t have shown him to us. If you make boring, unscary demons, keep them in the dark. Mia is scared through and rushes back to her apartment.

Now she wants to talk to the detective again. Get some details on the cult that attacked her. He says they were part of a group called the Disciples of the Ram. And that they were attempting to conjure something. Mia wants more information on such things and goes to Evelyn’s bookstore. She happens to have exactly what Mia needs, and it even has a section on that specific cult! Convient. Evelyn helps Mia with the research and says the demon haunting her wants a soul. She’s very confident in her assessment.

Mia is trying to get back into the building from one of her and Leah’s walks. She lets go of the stroller and it rolls into oncoming traffic, getting smashed. Before we can panic, we cut back to Mia, who has been holding Leah this whole time. So that kid is psychic and this movie hard core faked us out. If she was holding Leah and trying to open that door, then she must have had her tucked under her arm like a football. We didn’t see that kid at all.

Things are ready to go full haunting. The mobile goes off on its own and when Mia checks it out. All the doors slam shut, trapping her in the room. She can just see Leah under the door and books are crashing to the ground around the baby. Annabelle falls to the floor, startling Mia and blocking her view. Mia finally gets into the room and Leah is totally fine. The doll sits up on its own, one of the creepier scenes, and begins floating in the air. Actually, it is just the demon holding the doll. I don’t really think it’s all that necessary for the haunting but fine.

After this, even John is on board with the whole haunted Annabelle doll thing. They bring in the priest to check it out. He fully agrees the doll is possessed and takes it with him to deal with it. He knows some people. Those people are the Warrens, although they don’t appear in the movie. Father Perez is driving witnnabelle in the backseat when things go a little haywire with his radio. He makes it to the church, but before he can walk in the ghost woman, Annabelle appears. He is ripped from the door, flies through the air, and lands with what appears to be a serious head injury. The doll is gone.

Mia, thinking everything is taken care of, spends the day shopping with Evelyn. It’s apparent they have become close. Evelyn shares that her own daughter died in a car accident while she was driving tired. She wanted to die herself but lives on because her daughter told her, from beyond the grave, that there was a purpose for her.

At the hospital, John sees Father Perez. He is messed up and lets John know he never got the doll to the church. And that it’s missing. He also tells John the demon wants Mia’s soul, not Leah’s. See, there is a clause in these things that requires the soul to be offered to the demon and babies can’t do that. John tries to call Mia, but there is too much static for her to hear.

Mia hears a knock at the door and sees Father Perez. He’s laid up in the hospital so we know this is a demon, but Mia doesn’t until he starts shouting and the door slams shut. Evelyn is like we need to get out of here, but when they get to Leah’s room, the baby is gone. Evelyn tries to get Mia to leave and call for help, but she will not go without the baby. I probably wouldn’t either. The demon throws Evelyn out the front door and once again the demon slams it shut and prevents her from getting back in. He is really into slamming doors. I guess it’s a teenage demon.

Mia is frantic. Looking for Leah and asking what the demon wants. It writes ‘her soul’ all over the room in red crayon. Mia takes the Annabelle doll and beats the crap out of it. This doesn’t help. Instead, she turns to see Leah on the floor apparently dead. Mia picks her up crying, but we hear a horrible giggle. It was just that weird doll from earlier. I knew that thing wasn’t right.

Mia begs for another way to be rid of the demon. It writes your soul on the window. See, it was just trying to get you Mia. She slowly, I mean so so slowly, walks to the door. Before she even makes it across the room John and Evelyn have busted through the front door. John begs Mia not to jump. She’s determined but again, so slowly, so John pulls her back from the window holding her back. This is distracting them, giving Evelyn time to grab the Annabelle doll and jump out the window herself. Sacrificing for her friend. Remember that opening sermon?? And Leah is returned to her crib.

No one ever found the Annabelle doll after Evelyn jumped. It mysteriously disappeared. We see it in a thrift shop where a woman is looking for a gift for her daughter, who’s a nurse.

No worries though, everyone, because these days Annabelle is kept locked up in a case at the Warren’s museum. Expect when she goes on tour. Which she is right now! Also, she might have burned down a plantation and gone missing. Fun!

What did you guys think of Annabelle? It is my least favorite in the Conjuring universe so far.