Annabelle 2014: Cast, Plot, Ending and Where to Watch

Annabelle (2014) is about a young couple in 1967 whose new baby, and a rare vintage doll, bring a demonic presence into their home. Medical student John Form gives his pregnant wife Mia the doll to complete her collection and to decorate the nursery. That same night their neighbors, the Higginses, are killed by two cultists, who then break into the Forms' home. Police shoot the man, and the woman dies by suicide in the nursery while clutching the doll.

Mia is hurt but survives, and she and John try to settle into life as new parents. The film then asks whether the doll is simply the last object the dying woman touched, or something that carries the horror out of that room. It is a spin-off from The Conjuring (2013), where the Warrens handle a haunted doll case and the doll ends up locked in their glass case. Chronologically it sits fourth in the saga, after The Nun (2018), Annabelle: Creation and The Nun II, as laid out in the Conjuring timeline.

The full plot of Annabelle (2014) runs from the Higgins murders in 1967 to the doll arriving among the Warrens' artifacts. After the attack, Mia gives birth to a daughter, Leah, and the family moves to an apartment in Pasadena. Strange events begin again once Mia finds the doll, which John had thrown away.

A detective tells Mia that the cult had been trying to summon a demon. Mia befriends Evelyn, who runs a bookshop, and Evelyn helps her understand that the demon followed the family in order to claim a soul. The Forms' priest, Father Perez, confirms that the doll is the demon's link to the world. He is attacked while trying to take it to the Warrens, and the demon takes the doll.

Using Perez's body, the demon then takes Leah, to force Mia to give up her own soul. Mia tries to jump from a window holding the doll, but John and Evelyn stop her. Evelyn gives herself up in Mia's place, atoning for the death of her own daughter in a car accident years earlier. The demon and the doll disappear and Leah is safe.

The last scene moves on. The doll is later sold to another mother, and it finally ends up locked in a glass case in the Warrens' collection, which hands the story back to The Conjuring.

Annabelle (2014) reached US theaters on October 3, 2014, with the UK following on October 10 and Australia on October 8, according to The Numbers and TMDB. Those dates are reported rather than confirmed by the studio.

It opened with about $37.1 million at the US box office, which is more than five times the film's reported $6.5 million budget in a single weekend. That start set up the run described under Conjuring box office, where the film finished at about $257.6 million worldwide. For the film that followed in release order, see The Conjuring 2.

The ending of Annabelle (2014) is a trade: Evelyn gives her soul to the demon so that Mia keeps hers and Leah is returned unharmed. The doll vanishes with the demon, and the film leaves it there for a short time.

The sequence that leads there is the most carefully built in the film. The demon, speaking through Father Perez's body after he is attacked on the way to the Warrens, takes Leah to force Mia to surrender her own soul. Mia climbs to a window with the doll in her arms, and John and Evelyn pull her back. Evelyn then steps in, and the film tells us why she can: her own daughter died in a car accident years earlier, and the sacrifice is her atonement. In my opinion, this is the one idea in Gary Dauberman's screenplay that is truly deliberate, because it ties the demon's demand for a soul to a specific grief rather than to a random victim.

Six months later the doll turns up in a shop and is bought by a mother for her daughter, Debbie. It then ends up in a glass case among the Warrens' artifacts, which links the film directly to The Conjuring (2013), where the Warrens are shown handling a haunted doll case and are known for their work with cursed objects.

How does it compare with the rest of the saga? The Conjuring (2013), directed by James Wan, builds its scares around the Perron farmhouse and keeps the Warrens at the center. Annabelle (2014), directed by John R. Leonetti (who had been the cinematographer on The Conjuring), instead keeps the Warrens offstage and puts a young couple in the middle. It could be argued that the nursery and apartment set pieces rely on familiar jolts, and that the third act carries more weight than they do. A dead daughter and a car accident also return in Annabelle Creation, where Samuel and Esther Mullins lose their daughter Bee, so the saga keeps coming back to that kind of loss as the doll's origin. Annabelle Comes Home then picks up from exactly the glass case and artifacts room this film closes on, with Dauberman directing.

The commercial context helps explain why the ending points outward. Box Office Mojo lists a reported $6.5 million budget against about $257.6 million worldwide, and the film opened with about $37.1 million in the US. That scale of return is the likely reason a doll in a glass case was treated as a franchise anchor rather than a one-off. That being said, the Warrens' claims about haunted objects remain claims, and the film is a fictional horror story built on them. Nothing in the ending is evidence of anything paranormal.

Annabelle (2014) was filmed in Los Angeles, California, where principal photography began in January 2014. Variety reported that New Line would begin production there on January 27, 2014.

The story is set in Santa Monica and then Pasadena in 1967, but Los Angeles is the only production location reported for the shoot.

Annabelle (2014) was a hit: it grossed about $257.6 million worldwide on a reported $6.5 million budget, close to 40 times its cost. Box Office Mojo lists $84.3 million domestic and $173.3 million international.

Is Annabelle 2014 based on a true story? The film borrows its doll from the world of Ed and Lorraine Warren, who claimed to investigate cursed objects. Those claims are the Warrens' own and are not established fact. For the background to the series, see Conjuring true story.

• Leonetti shot The Conjuring as cinematographer before directing this film.
• Gary Dauberman wrote the screenplay.
• Wallis and Horton were announced as the leads in early 2014, with Safran producing and Wan involved as a producer.
• Morganna Bridgers is credited as Debbie here and in The Conjuring (2013).

The saga continued with Annabelle Creation, a prequel in story terms. To place this film among the others, use the Conjuring movies in order guide or return to the Conjuring movies hub.