The creepy porcelain doll Annabelle is unleashed again with a fresh set of spine-chilling demons
in Annabelle Comes Home.
It's the third Annabelle movie and is actually both a sequel and a prequel, and with Annabelle
having appeared in six out seven of the Conjuring Universe's movies so far, things are getting
pretty complicated for the demonic doll's timeline.
Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers, I'm Jan and in this video I'm explaining the full chronological
timeline for Annabelle in the Conjuring movie franchise.
Plus I'll be discussing how the new movie reveals a surprising connection to the Conjuring's
other big bad, the demon nun Valak.
Spoilers ahead for Annabelle's appearances in the Conjuring Universe movies.
The timeline for Annabelle begins with Annabelle: Creation which establishes the origins of
the demonic doll within the Conjuring universe.
The movie begins in 1946 with doll maker Samuel Mullins finishing his work on an exclusive
set of a hundred porcelain dolls.
One day as the family returns from church, their car breaks down and, while Samuel is
fixing it, the Mullins' daughter Annabelle, also known as "Bee", is tragically killed
by a speeding car.
You're going to want to remember Bee, because she reappears many years later in Annabelle
Comes Home.
"Can I play with Annabelle?
I think you have the wrong house, there's no Annabelle here.
Yes she is."
After their daughter's death, the Mullins are so devastated that they pray for a way
to see Bee again.
They're contacted by a malevolent demon masquerading as the spirit of their dead daughter who asks
for permission to move into one of Samuel's porcelain dolls.
A manifestation of Bee returns to the Mullins household.
However, when Esther realises it's not really her daughter, the demon attacks her in an
attempt to take possession of her soul.
The church steps in and manages to contain the evil spirit in the doll.
The doll is then sealed in Bee's closet which is lined with pages from the holy Bible and
blessed by a priest for safety.
This keeps the demon locked away until 1958 when the Mullins take Sister Charlotte and
a group of orphans in to their home.
One of the orphans, Janice, is mysteriously lured into Bee's old bedroom where she finds
a key that opens Bee's closet.
This releases the spirit of the Annabelle demon which terrorises Janice and the other
girls over the following nights.
By the way, similar events occur many years later in Annabelle Comes Home when another
girl breaks the house rules, at the Warrens' this time, when she finds a key and accidentally
releases the demon doll from the box which is keeping her contained.
Once Annabelle is unleashed in Annabelle: Creation, we start to see her true demonic
form as the demon attempts to take Janice's soul.
"Will you help me?
What do you need?
Your soul!"
Janice escapes this encounter, but is disabled further.
And days later when she's taken outside, Annabelle seems to summon another evil spirit of a nun
this time who pushes Janice into a barn so that the demon in the form of Bee can attack
the young girl.
Bee vomits into Janice's mouth, now possessing her.
The entity that helped Annabelle could very well be the Conjuring's famous nun, Valak,
who starred in her own spin-off The Nun.
Annabelle's ability to call on other evil spirits is revealed by Lorraine Warren in
Annabelle Comes Home.
"It's the doll Ed, it's a beacon for other spirits."
The Annabelle demon, who's now inside Janice, begins a murderous rampage starting by killing
Samuel Mullins.
And when Janice's friend realises what's going on, she's tries to destroy the doll by throwing
it down the well.
This fails, with the doll reappearing moments later inside the farmhouse and it's the first
chronological example in the Conjuring Universe of how it seems to be almost impossible to
destroy the doll once it's controlled by the demon.
In later films, Annabelle is dumped numerous times in the trash, only to reappear later
back inside the building.
In both The Conjuring and Annabelle Comes Home, the Warrens explain that trying to destroy
the Annabelle doll "only makes things worse" and that "the genie is better kept in the
bottle".
The only way to stop the Annabelle demon is to contain it again.
In Annabelle: Creation, this only happens when Sister Charlotte manages to shove Janice
and the Annabelle doll into Bee's old closet, jamming it shut.
It's only a temporary measure though and when the police come to investigate, they discover
that Janice has dug her way out through a closet wall and escaped, leaving behind only
the porcelain doll which is taken away by the police.
Janice ends up at another orphanage, and when the Higgins family arrive to adopt her, she
reveals she now goes by the name of the demon that's secretly hiding inside her.
"I want to introduce you to Mr and Mrs Higgins.
"And you must be..."
"Annabelle."
"Annabelle.
What a lovely name."
Over the next 12 years, Annabelle Higgins, aka Janice, grows up and joins a cult called
the Disciples of the Ram.
The Annabelle doll then reappears in 1970 when John Form gives his wife Mia the doll
to add to her collection.
That same year, an adult Annabelle Higgins returns to the home of her adoptive parents
and, together with her boyfriend, brutally kills them.
The crazed pair then break into Mia and John's house next door, where Annabelle discovers
Mia's doll collection.
The possessed Annabelle Higgins tells Mia "I like your dolls."
Which is echoed eerily later in Annabelle Comes Home by the bloodied woman who suddenly
appears to Lorraine inside the Warren's car "I like your doll."
During the Form's home invasion, Annabelle kills herself while holding the porcelain
doll and a trickle of her blood runs into the doll's eye.
This transfers the demon out of Annabelle's human body back into the doll where it will
next begin to terrorise the Form family.
After continued attacks by the doll, Mia and John contact Father Perez who takes Annabelle
away to his church where he hopes the sacred place will weaken the demon.
The doll is able to conjure the form of Annabelle Higgins who attacks the priest, and the Annabelle
doll ends up again in Mia's apartment to demand her soul in return for sparing her baby.
To save Mia, her friend Evelyn sacrifices her own soul by falling out of the window
together with the Annabelle doll.
Moments later the doll disappears, reappearing six months later in a store where a mother
buys it as a gift for her daughter, Debbie.
This leads us into the prologue of The Conjuring where Ed and Lorraine Warren investigate the
Annabelle case for the very first time.
Debbie and her roommates explain to the Warrens that their porcelain doll has been mysteriously
moving around the apartment.
To try and figure out what was going on, the young nurses took it to a medium and the Annabelle
demon then tricked them by pretending to be the ghost of a 7-year-old girl called Annabelle
Higgins who'd died in the apartment.
The demon said it wanted to be friends with them as it was lonely.
So the roommates gave it permission to move into the doll at which point the demon started
to terrorise them, damaging their belongings and scrawling "miss me" all over the walls
and ceilings, and those messages reappear later in Annabelle Comes Home.
At this point, The Conjuring and Annabelle Comes Home converge with the opening scene
of Annabelle Comes Home reminding us how demonic possession works within The Conjuring Universe:
"It was a big mistake acknowledging this doll.
And through that, the inhuman spirit tricked you.
You gave it permission to infest your lives."
"So the doll was never possessed?"
"No, no, it was used as a conduit.
It was moved around to give the impression of possession.
Demonic spirits don't possess things.
They possess people."
The Annabelle Comes Home prologue then fills in a small narrative gap from The Conjuring
showing the Warrens telling the nurses they'll take the Annabelle doll away to keep it somewhere
safe.
But before the doll reaches the relative security of the Warren's artefact room, Ed and Lorraine
have to drive it back home and the doll immediately creates trouble causing their car to break
down outside a cemetery.
While Ed is fixing the car, Annabelle summons an array of spirits, one of which pushes Ed
into the path of an out-of-control truck, in a call-back to how Bee was run over in
Annabelle Creation after the Higgins car broke down.
Ed and Lorraine do get the doll back to their artefact room where they lock it away in a
cabinet made of church glass and have it blessed by a priest.
Like in Annabelle: Creation, this contains the evil for now until the main events of
Annabelle Comes Home which take place one year later.
Now, this is where the timeline gets a little tricky because during this intervening year,
the main events of the first Conjuring movie actually take place.
The Warren's investigation of the Perron haunting in Harrisville, Rhodes Island takes place
in 1971 and during that time the evil spirit Bathsheba goes to the Warren's house and lets
Annabelle loose and they both attack the Warren's daughter Judy.
By the way, if you're wondering why Judy looks different in The Conjuring compared to Annabelle
Comes Home, it's because the producers decided to recast Judy Warren with actress McKenna
Grace in the third Annabelle movie.
So, after the Perron haunting in The Conjuring, the main events of Annabelle Comes Home take
place.
In this new Annabelle movie, babysitter Mary Ellen's friend Daniela accidentally lets the
Annabelle doll out of her glass cabinet after touching pretty much everything in the Warren's
artefact room.
Annabelle, who as Lorraine explained is "a beacon for other spirits", then unleashes
a horde of new demons and monsters on Judy, Mary Ellen and Daniela who are home alone.
In this movie, the Annabelle demon specifically targets Judy and her soul, attacking the Warren's
daughter in various ways.
First Annabelle manifests as Bee, the Mullins' daughter from Annabelle: Creation.
She then also appears as Annabelle Higgins from the first Annabelle movie, before emerging
as the demon itself.
When Judy attempts to return the Annabelle doll to the glass cabinet, the demon starts
to suck her soul from her body.
Judy manages to grab a crucifix and place it on the demon's head which weakens it until
all three girls are able to lock the Annabelle doll back in the glass cabinet.
At this point, all of the other demonic entities that Annabelle summoned disappear.
Shortly after Annabelle Comes Home on the Conjuring timeline is The Curse of La Llorona
which takes place in 1973.
The Annabelle doll appears in flashback when Father Perez mentions his encounter with the
demon after Anna comes to him for help on how to deal with the Weeping Woman.
And Annabelle appears briefly at the very end of The Conjuring 2 when Ed Warren puts
the Crooked Man zoetrope on the shelf near the doll in the artefact room.
The Crooked Man has a spin-off movie in development which has been delayed due to the popularity
of The Nun, so it will be interesting to see if Annabelle factors into that future story
in any way.
Any of these new villains from Annabelle Comes Home could return in the next Conjuring movie
or their own spin-offs, and it's been rumoured that The Conjuring 3 may include demonic werewolves
which means we could see the Black Shuck from Annabelle Comes Home return very soon.
So, would you like to see any of the new demons in Annabelle Comes Home get their own movie?
And do you think Annabelle should return in the Conjuring Universe?
Let me know in the comments below.
Next tap left to find out all about the deleted ending to The Nun that you never got to see,
or tap right for another video you're sure to like.
Thanks for watching and see ya next time.
Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers!