Swift take: I liked The Conjuring, and I have loosely followed the real-life adventures of self-labelled “demonologists” The Warrens. Even if you are a skeptic about the after-life, their stories may give you pause. While some people were terrified by The Conjuring, I was not scared at all . . . except for the scenes showing this creepy doll. Dolls and me . . . don’t mix.
If I ever encountered Annabelle, I would get far away – but that is the funny thing about irrational fears, they start out of someplace rational.
I’ll share a quick story with you all. When I was 11 I got to visit Italy as a member of the Florida’s Singing Sons. We were all assigned families to live with in Italy that graciously shared their homes with us. I counted myself incredibly lucky, my family had a cute nineteen year old French au pair . . . but I was told that I would have to stay in the “girl’s room.” I didn’t care, how bad could it be? Oh, there is one thing they neglected to mention, because it was a sensitive topic, the girl died when she was 12, in that room.
Well, that certainly made me creeped out enough, but to add to the horror, she had a lot of dolls. There was one doll that was her favorite, it was a near life-size doll that after she died, her parents decided to change the appearance to look like their deceased daughter. They even had a special dress made to fit the doll, a dress their daughter so loved. I was told not to touch or disturb anything in the room. You can probably figure out where this is going.
At the edge of the bed, on a rocking chair, about eight inches from my face was this doll – just sitting there, staring at me, a shell of a former girl around my age. I thought, don’t be stupid, it’s just a doll, man. Yea, that’s what I told myself as I tried so hard not to fall asleep looking at that creepy smile . . . the whole time thinking “if that rocking chair starts moving, I am BOLTING!” At one point I decided to roll over so I wouldn’t see her. If you have even a modest imagination, you know that only made things five times worse!
I am alive now, 29 years later, so the doll didn’t “get me” or anything. But, to this day, if I see a doll that reminds me of that one, and if it is on a rocking chair . . . well, let’s just say that The Conjuring may not have scared me, but Annabelle will probably send me to a mental ward. The film releases October 3rd, hopefully I will be released from the ward by Halloween.
