Annabelle (doll)

Annabelle is a supposedly haunted Raggedy Ann doll, housed in the now closed occult museum of the paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren.

[7] Texas State University assistant professor of religious studies Joseph Laycock says most skeptics have dismissed the Warrens' museum as "full of off-the-shelf Halloween junk, dolls and toys, books you could buy at any bookstore".

Laycock calls the Annabelle legend an "interesting case study in the relationship between pop culture and paranormal folklore" and speculates that the demonic doll trope popularized by films such as Child's Play, Dolly Dearest, and The Conjuring likely emerged from early legends surrounding Robert the Doll, as well as from a Twilight Zone episode released five years prior to the Warrens' story, entitled "Living Doll", in which the character of the mother is named Annabelle.

Laycock suggests that "the idea of demonically possessed dolls allows modern demonologists to find supernatural evil in the most banal and domestic of places".

Hill criticized sensational press coverage of the Warrens' occult museum and its Annabelle doll.