After the massive success of 2013’s The Conjuring, the characters introduced a new face to the big screen in the form of a possessed doll called Annabelle.
The 2014 film in which the doll is the titular character, shows an investigation that Detective Clarkin (Eric Ladin) worked on prior to the events of The Conjuring. During Annabelle, John and Mia Form (Ward Horton and Annabelle Wallis) have their home invaded by satanic cultists who proceed to use the vintage doll Anabelle to torture their residence.
While the events of the movie are fiction, they were inspired by a real doll that spent years on display in the Warren Occult Museum in Connecticut. According to paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, who ran the museum, the doll first surfaced in 1970 when it was given to a nurse. She was told by a medium that the spirit of a deceased girl Anabelle had inhabited it.
The doll was moved to Warren’s museum after it allegedly began exhibiting malicious and frightening behaviors, it remained there until sometime in 2020.
Did the Annabelle doll really escape?
You can relax, the Annabelle doll isn’t out on the hunt for its next victims, the doll was at the center of a misunderstanding that led to reports of it “escaping” the museum.
During an interview the Hollywood Reporter did with British actress Annabelle Wallis who stars in the Annabelle film, she spoke about running with Tom Cruise, her co-star in The Mummy. According to a YouTube video explaining the situation, with The Hollywood Reporter, including some of the escape scenes from the movie, the Chinese translation of the interview led to a rumour that the possessed doll had escaped trending on the Internet.
Shortly afterwards, the Warrens’ son-in-law Tony Spera dispelled the rumors by revealing that the Annabelle doll was in fact still within the exhibit at the now-closed museum.