The world of The Conjuring, so rich with ghosts and demons, has given birth to an entire cinematic universe of supernatural threats. The most instantly iconic is Annabelle, the cursed doll that's appeared throughout the franchise. After her brief introduction the first installment of the horror series, the doll has gone on to star in her own films.
CBR had the opportunity to visit the set of the third chapter, Annabelle Comes Home, explore the home of paranormal investigators Ed and Loraine Warren, and speak with director Gary Dauberman and stars Madison Iseman, McKenna Grace and Katie Sarife.
The House That Horror Built
After being brought onto the Warner Bros. film lot, journalists were led through the recreated home of the Warrens. Jennifer Spence (Shazam!) took over production design for the film, helping to recreate the rooms while adding her own touches to the setting. She revealed she had slipped new elements into the house, and specifically the fabled artifact room.
As the group was led through the Warren home, the cast and crew filmed parts of the set. The 1970s decor permeates the main house, from the small touches of Judy Warren's bedroom to the design of the kitchen. Spence showed us the wardrobe constructed for the film, and introduced the color schemes and designs of each character's clothing. Overall, the feeling of the set is one of comfort. The calm setting doesn't betray the horrors that are hidden in the back of the house: namely, the artifact room.
Perhaps the most distinct setting in the franchise, the room contains all of the possessed artifacts the Warrens have collected over the years. The room has appeared prominently in previous films, but not as much as in this one. The producers revealed the artifact room actually been expanded, with director Gary Dauberman explaining the room grew so they could include more frightening souvenirs as the series continued. No photos were permitted, but sitting in the back corner was the Annabelle doll, tucked away in her display case.
The Cast & Crew
Star Mckenna Grace, who plays daughter Judy Warren, was practically jumping from joy at being on set.
"It's really exciting, because I love the movies," said the 12-year-old actress, who played young Carol Danvers in Captain Marvel. [Judy's] really cool, she's nice and knows a lot about all the paranormal stuff. For me and my interpretation, I think she knows a lot about it. But she also doesn't like it too much, because she gets made fun of at school a lot, so she doesn't like it for that reason. It's really fun, though. When I found out I was going to be Judy, I started crying. It was really exciting. [Horror movies] are my favorite type of movies. I love them. I watch them all the time with my Dad. My favorite is The Shining. All-time favorite. I don't get scared, I like them. Some of them are scary to me and some of them aren't. Depends on what movie it is."
When asked what it was like to see Annabelle for the first time, Grace described it as "Scary! Frightening. Exciting, but most of all scary."
"We were scared every time we saw the Annabelle doll," she continued. "There was [also] this giant skull sort of thing. It was obviously fake, it looked like an animal skull. It was obviously fake. And there was this little monkey that would laugh that was creepy. I haven't been in [the artifact room] all too much."
Madison Iseman described her character, babysitter Mary Ellen, as "very pure." "She's very put together, in every way," she said. "So of course, everything just goes wrong. I love horror films in general, so I've always been wanting to do one. And I got really lucky with this one, because this is such a great thing to be a part of, the Conjuring universe in general. I remember seeing The Conjuring and The Conjuring 2 when I was in high school, and it scared the crap out of me. And I love the Annabelle films as well.
"I've always been obsessed with horror films," Iseman continued. "When I was younger, I used to make my own little horror films. They're on the internet, you can't find them. They're like a really weird little thing with my friends from middle school. So I feel like I've always had that inside of me, that I've always have wanted to tap into." While talking about her character and how the paranormal affects her, Iseman said "I think it scares her so much that she chooses not to think about it. When it's brought up in conversation, she's the kind of person who will start talking about 'Ohhh, this lamp is really nice.' She'll change the subject. It makes her uneasy, but she's also really close with the Warrens as well."
Katie Sarife introduced herself, saying "my character's name is Danielle, and she's really fun. She's that kind of fun best friend who finds the humor in everything. She's also got this wild curiosity with the afterlife, because she just lost a loved one, so she's very curious with that stuff. And she's best friends with Mary Ellen, who Madison plays. [Danielle] is that friend that gets you out of your bubble, pushes you a bit. I really liked playing her. I do think she covers a bit of her pain with being fun, but I think that's also just a quality that she has... I feel like she's pretty close to myself so I just try to find the more confident elements of myself, because she speaks her mind. I think a lot of it is based on a part of me."
When asked what it was like to come onto the movies, Sarife said, "I love these films. I will be honest, it took me a couple of tries to get through the first Conjuring. I quit the first few times, because I'm a big baby. I'll make people sit outside the bathroom for me because I'm so scared. But I love this horror franchise and I think everyone [involved] is so great and talented, and they've mastered it. So I think to be a part of this franchise is just amazing. I think the films are terrifying, but I was glad to be a part of them. And when I get scared, I have my rosemary in my pocket to help out."
"Dolls were my biggest fear growing up," she said. "I was petrified of my dolls. It was terrifying. So when I found out [about Annabelle Comes Home], I was like, 'This is going to be a little payback.' But every time I say something that could piss off Annabelle, I'm like, 'Just kidding just kidding.'"
Talking about the placement of the film within the Conjuring universe, director Gary Dauberman said Annabelle Comes Home is "very much part of the continuity."
"Annabelle: Creation really focused on the mythology, the origin of the doll," he said. "With this one, I really wanted to dig into the Warrens a little bit. It's nice to see them, just for a minute, not talking about a paranormal investigation and just being two people who are married and in a relationship. Have them be, for a moment, normal. It's kind of a thematic element throughout the movie, I thought a lot about Judy, what it would be like to grow up with these two very special people as parents. What that was like, and what all that pressure must have been like. When you're a kid, you just want to be like everyone else, but the Warrens are so different and unique, and what that must have been like to be her... I think we've talked about the origins of the doll, so I wanted to branch off in different directions. We get the backgrounds on some of the artifacts we've seen in other movies and see what they're about."
Dauberman wrote the previous films in the series, but this is the first time he's sat in the director's chair. He described the experience as "challenging." "It was amazing, it was a ton of work, but I think we put a lot of work into all these movies so I'm not a stranger to that," he said. "Over the last couple of years, working with James [Wan], he's so open to questions and he's been such a great teacher about what it takes to be a director. The specificity he gives things is something I've learned over the years. And just on the Annabelle franchise, on the first one with John R. Leonetti, and becoming friends with David S. Sandberg on Annabelle: Creation ... it was just the best education. I took what I learnt from them and applied it to this and hopefully didn't let them down. Any time I was on the set with any of them, it felt like I'd won a content."
Describing the effect Annabelle will have on the other haunted artifacts, Dauberman said "If the artifact room is an engine that needs a battery to run, Annabelle is the battery. Other things feed off her energy or she manipulates them in order to get through to the girls in the house. She's almost the conductor of the orchestra. Through Annabelle, we get to learn more about the other artifacts, their history and how they scare people and their back story a little bit. ... Annabelle has her own set of rules, so it was fun to not just have those in the movie. If I wanted something that felt weirder than scary, I could use another artifact. The challenge was because there are so many artifacts, it was finding the balance between all of them. You only have so much time."
When asked if there was ever a version of the film that didn't feature Ed and Lorraine Warren, Dauberman said, "We would have figured it out, but I didn't want to entertain that thought because I didn't want to go out to the universe. Patrick [Wilson] and Vera [Familia] are so great, they were always on board from the early conversations. We always knew it was going to happen, because they're so cool and great and were so excited about it. I didn't have alternate version."
When talking about how he constructs scary moments, Dauberman said, "I love to play around with expectations. I'm a huge fan of magic, and it's all about misdirect. I try to apply that a lot to scares. I learnt that from James [Wan] too, he's always trying to push that. 'I did this last time, so I'll give them up to that this time, and then I'm going to go right and they're going to think I'm going to go left.' So I try to do that with a bunch of the scares here. And to not just go for the jump scares all the time. There's a sequence that feels more Twilight Zone-y than a more traditional approach. We tried to vary it up."
Real-Life Ghost Stories
Since 2016's The Conjuring 2, a bishop that works with the studio has visited the sets of the franchise's films, offering protection from any real-life supernatural elements. Some of the productions experienced events attributed to the supernatural, including runes that seemed to appear everywhere on the set of the first Annabelle. But things got even creepier for the cast of Annabelle Comes Home.
"It was actually really cool," Iseman said of the blessing. "I'd never had that done before. It was kind of eerie, being on set like that. Katie and Mckenna and I all got a personal blessing, too, which was really awesome. I can't say I don't believe in [the supernatural]. It's funny, I hadn't thought much about it until I was working on a horror film. I'm always doing slasher films, but when you mess with the devil, I don't know. I would never touch a Ouija board. Annabelle is just scary."
"I had this idea to do an intention candle," Katie Sarife recounted. "It's a hippie-ish thing, but my friend told me about how it worked. So I was like, 'What better time to do one than while doing something that involves the supernatural?' So I buy this success candle because I had a good feeling about this film. My candle started acting crazy. I swear to God, the rim of the candle set on fire. And the flames were just dancing, the glass was on fire, and finally the wick lit. And when I looked back, the candle was out. So I light it again, and then it goes out again. So I took it as a sign to stop... and thought maybe this was Annabelle saying hi. It was really freaky."
Dauberman said he was so in his head for this film that "a demon could have walked by and I wouldn't have seen it." "On the first Annabelle, though, there was a part where a girl [who] got murdered in the beginning, and there's a rune on the wall and it's splattered with blood, and we shot that all night," he recalled. "And then I went home... and when I woke up, the light reflecting off of the lamp in my house, it looked like the same rune was on my ceiling when I woke up. It really freaked me out.Without fail, on each of these movies something like that happens."
Written and directed by Gary Dauberman, Annabelle Comes Home stars Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Mckenna Grace and Madison Iseman. The film hits theaters on June 28.