“It was really important that she look somewhat human. I think that kind of sensibility plays into the scary psychological factor of the film. When you see her propped up against the chair or in a corner of a room, you have to look again to realise ‘Oh, that’s not a person, that’s a doll!’” producer James Wan

Miss me? Annabelle, the infamous doll at the centre of one of paranormal experts Ed and Lorraine Warren’s most profiled cases, made her terrifying screen debut in James Wan’s box-office sensation The Conjuring (2013). Even while shooting the film, Wan and producer Peter Safran were entertaining the idea that the not-so-innocent doll needed an entire movie of her own.

Wan, who has always been fascinated with the Annabelle case, says: “We know she’s so bad that, even after all this time, she still has to be kept locked up... but, how did she get that way?”

Safran adds: “How does something so charming, so sweet, become a conduit for pure evil and destruction?”

The two approached Wan’s long-time director of photography John R. Leonetti to direct the film. “I have been very fortunate to have had John there right by my side, shooting on most of my films, so it was a natural progression for John to direct Annabelle,” Wan attests. “His visual style, his passion for this story and his innate ability to connect with cast and crew was the total package and we were very fortunate to have him on this film.”

Leonetti, who crafted chilling shots for Wan on The Conjuring and Insidious films, among others, was just as intrigued with the sinister doll’s beginnings and translating that to the screen, this time as director. “I’m a huge horror fan,” says Leonetti. “I couldn’t wait to bring all that I’ve experienced shooting with James, who is the master of scares, and put it into this project.”

DOLL OF DEATH

When a violent home invasion upends expectant couple John and Mia’s world, events are set in motion that become not only increasingly threatening but harder to explain. Is it all in Mia’s head? Is she suffering post-traumatic stress? Or is something evil out to get her family?

Leonetti says: “I love stories with female protagonists and Mia is the lynchpin of this movie.” Casting directors left no stone unturned and brought Leonetti options from the United States to South Africa. They taped Annabelle Wallis, who was working on another film in the UK, and sent it to filmmakers.

Wallis describes her character as “a lovely, quiet sort of a woman. I was really intrigued by her. She’s intelligent and vulnerable and fighting a battle very much on her own because people assume motherhood has just heightened her anxiety and made her paranoid. But her situation is more complex than that and so is she.”

Ward Horton’s audition for the role of Mia’s husband John was just as memorable for filmmakers. Horton had shown up in character, wearing what a med student would have worn in the ’70s, down to the glasses and haircut. “Ward came in and it felt like he’d walked right out of the era, in a 1970s Brooks Brothers sort of way. He was that young medical student we were looking for,” Safran remembers.

Annabelle Wallis, who plays Mia and worked the most with Annabelle, notes: “She is incredibly frightening because it’s what you least expect. It’s so eerily disarming... you look at her and she is so symbolic of all that is good and innocent, yet there’s something about her… she is this menace.”

As soon as they saw Wallis and Horton together, the filmmakers knew they had the Forms, the young couple whose contact with the Annabelle doll wreaks havoc on their lives.

Wan offers: “I think the two of them together as Mia and John are a great fit, very genuine. You can ultimately relate to them as this young loving couple and go with them on their frightening journey. You are invested emotionally, so the terror is even more disquieting. I think that’s what Annabelle and Ward really bring to this film.”

At first, the couple seems to have everything they want — her baby bliss, his medical career. Their future is laid out before them. But soon Mia and John’s bright future is jeopardised and, ironically, it is John being a loving husband that kicks off the string of hair-raising episodes.

Horton laughs: “Yep. It’s all his fault. Mia collects dolls and John has searched extensively to find a very rare one she has always wanted for her collection. He gives it to her as a gift, to celebrate the child that is on the way, and she puts it in the nursery. They are so happy. If they only knew.”

EERILY DISARMING

But they have no idea that what is about to happen will rip their perfect world apart in one short night. When Mia wakes to hear a scream next door, John goes to investigate, leaving Mia in the house alone — though not for long. Satanic cultists break in, and in an attempt to summon a demon, smear a bloody rune on the nursery wall, dripping blood on Mia’s prize doll. The couple survives, but after that night, ominous incidents only escalate.

Mia is so distraught that they decide to leave their house and move to Pasadena. It’s a fresh new start… or is it?

“They are both experiencing different things and it puts them in a difficult position,” says Wallis. “Mia has gone into maternal survival mode since the attack and selfishly wants to protect her baby, so she ices John out in a sense.”

Horton says: “Being a doctor, things are black and white for John, there’s no grey area. So when she tells him about these strange events, he has a tough time believing it. He wants a rational explanation.”

The real Annabelle doll was reportedly purchased at a thrift store as a birthday present for a college student in the ’70s. She tormented her owner and purportedly moved on her own, wrote notes on paper, lied about her identity, clawed and scratched the living, and is even blamed for at least one death. Annabelle currently rests in a glass case at the Warren’s Occult Museum in Connecticut, behind a sign that reads “Warning: Positively Do Not Open.”

Wan’s initial screen interpretation of the doll for The Conjuring was meticulously designed. “It was really important that she look somewhat human,” he says. “I think that kind of sensibility plays into the scary psychological factor of the film. When you see her propped up against the chair or in a corner of a room, you have to look again to realise ‘Oh, that’s not a person, that’s a doll!’”

Wallis, who worked the most with Annabelle, notes: “She is incredibly frightening because it’s what you least expect. It’s so eerily disarming... you look at her and she is so symbolic of all that is good and innocent, yet there’s something about her… she is this menace.”

“I hope Annabelle gets under your skin, then gets in your head, and your soul and your blood. And if your blood starts tingling and the hair on your arms stands up, we’ve done our job!” director John Leonetti

HOUSE OF HORRORS

Filming on Annabelle took place at practical locations in and around Los Angeles, where Leonetti chose to shoot the film almost entirely in sequence.

Their home was the setting of one of the most intense sequences in the film, from both a “scare value” as well as technical difficulty standpoint. The home invasion begins with Mia and John in bed, Mia waking to a scream, looking out of the window, and taking the audience’s eye outdoors to the neighbour’s, where the cultists are in the midst of their first attack. The camera then comes back to the house where the cultists wage an attack on pregnant Mia.

The house kitchen was rebuilt on a parking garage rooftop for a harrowing sequence involving pyrotechnics,when a pregnant Mia is alone in the house with the Annabelle doll.

As with all films, but especially those aiming to scare the pants off an audience, the score for Annabelle was extremely important, and Leonetti brought in Joseph Bishara, who wrote the scores for the Insidious films and The Conjuring, to compose the music. Bishara also has a creepy cameo, which isn’t a first. He has been in the films he previously scored for Wan.

Wan notes: “While purposely retaining some familiar elements, John really put a unique and eerie tenor into this film. He did a fantastic job and I’m excited for audiences to see it. Annabelle is suspenseful and thrilling, and all of that makes for a lot of fun.”

Safran comments: “There’s truly a progression of scares, an escalation, John just keeps it going and going until all hell breaks loose. It’s an intense ride.”

Leonetti concludes: “I hope Annabelle gets under your skin, then gets in your head, and your soul and your blood. And if your blood starts tingling and the hair on your arms stands up, we’ve done our job!”

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