Last years The Conjuring, directed by James Wan and starring Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as prominent American paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren was loosely based on the real life accounts of alledged paranormal activity that affected the Perron family of Harrisville, Rhode Island in 1971. Featured at the beginning of the movie was a haunted doll by the name of Annabelle that had been terrorizing the lives of three college students, before being promptly sealed away in a secure glass case in Ed Warren's Occult Museum (picture, from the movie, below). A movie based upon the doll has already been filmed and is currently in post production, which has now been given an October 3rd, 2014 release date by studio New Line Cinema. Expect a trailer to be released soon!
Though not the same make as doll as seen in the movie, the Annabelle doll is an actual supposed occult relic that can be found in the Warren's Occult Museum. Though Ed Warren passed away in 2006, the museum is still ran to this day by Lorraine Warren and her nephew John Zaffis, it is located at the back of their home in Monroe, Connecticut. The real Annabelle doll is in fact one of the famous American "Raggedy Ann" dolls based upon the childrens book character created by author and illustrator Johnny Gruelle - roughly the size of a young infant, with a red triangle for a nose, red woolen hair styled in platts on either side of the head with big wide open eyes and wearing an all-in-one dress with striped red and yellow socks, and black shoes (as pictured below, held by Lorraine Warren and sealed in the Warren Occult Museum).
The doll in question was given to student nurse Donna as a birthday present from her mother. Donna lived with fellow student nurse, friend and roommate Angie, with a third college student Lou whom frequented the apartment often. Initially Donna and Angie believed themselves to be the victims of pranksters when upon returning home the doll was found in different positions, and even different rooms than which it was left when the roommates had left the apartment earlier in the day. After the roommates tried, and failed, to prove that a prankster was indeed to blame they called in a medium whom claimed the doll was possessed by the lonely spirit of a young girl called Annabelle. Compassionately, roommates Donna and Angie welcomed the doll and its alledged spirit into their home.
Soon the roommates would return home to find written notes, as though written by a child, scribblings on the wall and rooms ramsacked. On one occasion the roommates returned home to find the dolls hand bloodied with three drops of blood on its chest. Things continued to escalate when Lou, the third student, whom had never entertained the doll, awoke one night in the apartment to find the doll strangling him, and on another occasion Lou had entered into the room where the doll was, alone, after having heard noises - minutes later Donna and Angie ran into the room upon hearing Lou's screams; he had two sets of claw marks on his chest. Frightened, the roommates called their local Episcopal priest, Father Hegan, whom passed the case onto Father Cooke, who in turn contacted Ed and Lorraine Warren.
After meeting with the three students the Warrens stated that an "inhuman spirit" was attached to and manipulating the doll, and through the medium had duped the roommates into haunting them of their own free will. After exorcising and blessing the apartment the Warrens relocated the doll to the museum in their home, sealing it in a locked glass cage after witnessing it continue the same behavior described by the college roomates.
Many more of Ed and Lorraine Warrens paranormal investgations have been adapted for the big screen including 1979 and 2005's The Amityville Horror, 2009s Haunting in Connecticut and 2001's TV movie The Haunted. A sequel to The Conjuring, is also scheduled for October 23rd, 2015.
