Credit: Dangerous Minds / Reddit

If you think you know what the Annabelle doll from The Conjuring franchise looks like in real life, chances are you don’t.

Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga’s world-conquering franchise of ghost stories claims to be based on true stories, and, to an extent, they are. Wilson and Farmiga both play real people, Ed and Lorraine Warren, who certainly claim to have investigated hundreds of paranormal happenings. They certainly claim to have seen the Amityville hauntings in person. They certainly claim to have battled a demonically possessed doll called Annabelle.

That’s essentially the extent of any truth you’ll find there because, beyond that, the Warrens were con artists, pure and simple. I hate to break it to you, but The Conjuring films, fun though they are, are barely more fictionalised than anything Ed and Lorraine themselves ever said about their day job. Case in point, the iconic Annabelle doll from the films, responsible for so many wonderful scares and its own separate spin-off franchise, doesn’t look anything like how it looks in the films.

Principally because the actual Annabelle doll, the one that’s supposedly demonically possessed and one of the most dangerous objects on earth, is a Raggedy Ann Doll. The same kind you’ve been able to get at all good toy stores for the better part of a century. For those not based in the United States who might not know what a Raggedy Ann doll is, there’s a more recent haunted doll story that might make you understand what this sounds like.

One that involves a haunted doll bearing the visage of Elsa from Frozen.

How was this Elsa doll haunted?

If the appearance of Annabelle was changed for The Conjuring movie due to rights reasons, then God help the poor soul who tries to make this particular shaggy dog story a motion picture. Not only would you have to make a legally distinct ice-themed princess, but you’d also have to write a song for her because Elsa’s deathless number ‘Let It Go’ plays a major role in this particular story. One that was documented on its owner’s mother’s Facebook page in 2020.

So the story goes, on Christmas Day 2013, Emily Madonia was one of millions of mothers who got their daughter an Elsa doll for Christmas. One that could sing her signature song at the press of a button. The doll was a favourite of Madonia’s daughter for many years until strange things started to happen. The doll began saying its phrases and its signature song in different languages, then started activating when no one pressed its button.

Now, yes, this is pretty standard behaviour for any battery-operated device whose batteries haven’t been changed in years, as Madonia freely stated was the case here. However, I defy anyone not to be freaked out by a slowed-down, Spanish-language version of ‘Let It Go’ starting up at three in the morning, apropos of nothing at all. Then things supposedly got even weirder. In 2020, the decision was made to throw the doll out. The doll, it seemed, had other plans.

No matter how many times the family tried to throw the doll out, she found a way back. The first time she reappeared sat on a bench in Madonia’s kitchen. The second time, she was found in the garden by Madonia’s daughter. Freaky stuff, at least, until you look at the year all this happened. 2020 was a hell of a year, one where you really did have to make your own fun, and one thing a lot of people did was concoct elaborate stories told via social media.

This seems like one of those, but hey, it wasn’t the weirdest thing done by a family in lockdown. If anything, this was one of the cooler ones. Just have to be a bit more creative when writing the movie of it. Those Disney lawyers are scarier than any ghost you can imagine.