The story of Annabelle the demon doll starts in 1943 with "Annabelle: Creation," when a dollmaker named Samuel Mullins and his wife Esther lose their seven-year-old daughter, Annabelle, in a freak car accident. About 12 years later, in 1955, the Mullins decide they've spent enough time without a child, so they open their doors to a group of orphaned girls and the nun tasked with their care, a woman by the name of Sister Charlotte.
When one of the orphans, a girl named Janice, stumbles upon a porcelain doll in a locked bedroom, she unwittingly releases a demon that wreaks havoc on the house and its inhabitants. It's soon revealed that following their daughter's death, the Mullins had been tricked into letting a demon take possession of one of Samuel's dolls, and it's now decided to try and find a human host.
By the end of the ordeal, the demon has succeeded in possessing Janice, who escapes and — now going by the name Annabelle — winds up being adopted by a nice family in Santa Monica, where she grows up, runs away, joins a cult, and then returns to murder her adoptive parents. Talk about a downbeat ending.
