John Form believed he had discovered the ideal present for his pregnant wife, Mia: an antique doll adorned in a stunning white gown. Unfortunately, their happiness was short-lived. In a horrific incident, worshipers of the devil invaded their residence and viciously assaulted the couple. In an attempt to summon a demon, the cultists smeared a bloody symbol on the wall of the baby's room and dripped blood onto Mia's doll, transforming the once-beautiful item into a conduit for unspeakable wickedness.
See the Gang's Recap of Annabelle (2014), written by Gary Dauberman and directed by John R. Leonetti. Staring Ward Horton, Annabelle Wallis, and Alfre Woodard.
FUN FACTS
Warning: Spoilers Ahead
The baby mobile that hangs over the crib plays the same tune as the music box from The Conjuring.
So the Raggedy Ann doll that the real Annabelle doll was given to Donna, who was a college student at the time by her mother in 1970. She and her roommate, Angie, noticed that the doll would seem to move subtlety, like, subtly. And then within a few weeks, it started to move from room to room while they were gone. They hire a medium, and the medium gives them the theory that Annabel is Annabelle Higgins, a child in the 1860s, whose body was found in a field that the house now occupied.
Ellen DeGeneres had an interesting experience watching this film because she watched it and thought that building looks familiar. And it turned out that they had used her old apartment building. And she said that it was scary back then, too, which is true. Most old apartments are creepy.
Alfre Woodard hadn't seen The Conjuring before she started working on this film, but instead researched the true story. Air quotes. True that inspired this film.
The characters names Mia and John are a specific reference to Rosemary's Baby. This is confirmed by the screenwriter. There are a lot of commonalities between the two of them, including the fact that they're both about a young, well-to-do couple in a luxury apartment building, having a baby in combination with Satanists, trying to take over, take the mother and child, along with the frequent noise of the neighbors in an adjacent apartment or above, are all nods to that film.
In a 1963 episode of The Twilight Zone titled The Twilight Zone Living Doll, the episode involves a talking doll given to a young girl by her mother. The doll's innocent vocabulary soon takes on a sinister tone, more like a Chucky, especially toward the girl's cruel stepfather. And the girl's mother in the episode is named Annabelle. So it's entirely possible that this partially informed the true story, where it's something that they may have absorbed or seen on TV.
The name Leah is shouted 89 times in the film. it breaks the record of saying a character's name repeatedly in a movie.
The director for this film was also the cinematographer for Child's play 3
If you look closely at the box that Annabelle is delivered in, at the beginning of the movie, it says Ravensfair. This is actually a reference to the film Dead Silence, which features a town of the same name. James Wan also wrote and directed that film.