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The horror begins with shocking speed. Their next-door neighbors, the Higgins, are brutally murdered by two cultists—a young man and his female companion. The police chase ends in the Form’s nursery, where the female cultist, clutching the doll, slits her own throat while bleeding onto the porcelain face of the toy.

In 2013, James Wan’s The Conjuring introduced audiences to a lot of things: the real-life case files of Ed and Lorraine Warren, the terrifying clap-happy ghost Bathsheba, and a creepy, freckled-faced Raggedy Ann doll locked in a glass case. That doll was on screen for less than two minutes, yet she stole the entire movie.

The final scene—where a priest arrives to take the doll away, only to have the Warrens (in a brief cameo) lock it in the artifact room with the warning, "Don't touch her"—cements the film's legacy. This wasn't a story about defeating evil. It was a story about learning to live with a caged monster.

Annabelle is a messy origin story, but it is also a masterclass in "less is more." You don't watch it for the plot. You watch it to watch a sewing machine stitch a dress while a red-haired doll sits perfectly still—and somehow, that is terrifying. Annabelle is currently streaming on Max and available on 4K Ultra HD.