DVD: Annabelle - A Possessed Doll. It Gets Inside Your Head And Stays There.

A spin-off focusing on the origins of the Annabelle doll that was introduced in The Conjuring was announced shortly after The Conjuring's release, mainly due to its worldwide box office success and the positive reception towards the depiction of the doll. Principal photography began in January 2014 in Los Angeles.

Annabelle premiered at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles on September 29, 2014,and was theatrically released in the United States on October 3, 2014, by Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line Cinema. Annabelle received mostly negative reviews from critics, many of whom felt the film inferior to its predecessor, but it was a box office success, grossing over $257 million against its $6.5 million production budget. A prequel, titled Annabelle: Creation, was released on August 11, 2017. A sequel, titled Annabelle Comes Home, was released on June 26, 2019.

DETAILED PLOT

In Santa Monica, California, John Form, a doctor, presents his expectant wife Mia with a rare vintage porcelain doll as a gift for their first child, which is to be placed in a collection of dolls in the Forms's nursery.

That night, Mia Form is disturbed by the sounds of her next door neighbors, the Higgins, being murdered during a home invasion. John goes to investigate and returns covered in blood, telling Mia to call the police. While John goes back to investigate again, Mia hears a woman's voice from the nursery and is attacked from behind by a man, who stabs her. John rushes in and fights the man, but he is overpowered and knocked unconscious. As the man tries to stab Mia again, the police arrive just in time and shoot him, while the woman commits suicide by slitting her throat inside the nursery while holding the doll. Mia is hospitalized as a result, the doctor told them that the baby is fine, but there is some damage. News reports identify the assailants as the Higgins' estranged daughter, Annabelle, and her unidentified boyfriend, both of whom are members of the Disciples of the Ram.

In the days following the attack, a series of paranormal activities occur around the Forms' residence. Afterwards, Mia gives birth to a healthy baby girl, who Mia and John decide to name Leah. The family move to an apartment in Pasadena and, after finding the doll that John had previously discarded in one of their boxes, another set of paranormal events plague Mia and Leah. The next night Mia is haunted by a malevolent presence in the apartment. She believes it to be Annabelle's ghost after she encounters a dark and terrifying figure in the building's basement. The demonic figure begins pursuing her before she escapes by running out the emergency exit and ascending the stairs.

Mia calls back Detective Clarkin to gather more information about Annabelle and her cult and learns that the cult mainly summons supernatural beings. With the help of bookseller and fellow tenant Evelyn, Mia realizes that the cult practiced devil worship, which conjured a demon that followed the family after they moved to their current apartment in order to claim a soul. Upon returning home, Mia and Leah are attacked by the demon who reveals itself while manipulating the doll. Terrified and worried for their daughter's safety, Mia and John contact their parish priest, Father Perez. He informs them that demons sometimes attach themselves to inanimate objects as an advantage so as to accomplish their goals and that a human soul must be offered for a purpose. Without any hopes of exorcising the demon out of the doll, Father Perez decides to take it away to seek help from the Warrens for further investigation. However, before he can enter the church, the demon impersonating Annabelle's spirit attacks him and grabs the doll.

Father Perez is hospitalized as a result and when John checks on him, he warns the latter that he has sensed the demon's powerful presence and that its true intention is to claim Mia's soul. John immediately calls Mia to warn her and urges her to leave the apartment, but she doesn't get the message due to static interference. That same night, the demon uses Father Perez's physical form to sneak into the apartment and abduct Leah for her mother's soul. As messages with "her soul" appeared on the windows and on the ceiling, to spare her daughter, Mia attempts to jump out of the window with the doll but John arrives just in time along with Evelyn to stop her. Evelyn decides to jump in Mia's place instead as atonement for causing a car accident that resulted in the death of her daughter, Ruby, years ago. While Evelyn lays dead, the doll disappears, Mia and John mourn Evelyn's sacrifice to protect the Forms from evil, but they decided to return at their peaceful life.

Six months later, the doll is bought from an antique shop by a mother as a birthday gift for her daughter who is a nursing student.