10 Horror Movie Mysteries That Should NEVER Have Been Answered
3. Annabelle Origins - Annabelle (2014)
Annabelle first popped up in The Conjuring (2013), where she sat in a cabinet doing nothing and creeped the bejesus out of us all, proving more memorable than even that film's main antagonist. Recognising the earning potential of the little miss with a mysterious backstory, the studio commissioned the first of many main series spin-offs, and Annabelle got her very own prequel in 2014.
Alas, the very things that worked about Annabelle in The Conjuring, the things that made her so creepy, were jettisoned early on by writer Gary Dauberman, in service of cheap scares.
The doll is a gift from a man to his wife, and after devil worshippers invade their home, the cultists' attempt to summon a demon turns Annabelle into the conduit for an unspeakable evil named Malthus. And there it is: Annabelle ruined in one swift stroke. If the doll is alive, she's terrifying, but if she's just a tool, a sort of key for a creature from the other side, she's not really anything.
All subsequent instalments of the Annabelle spin-off series have further ruined her mystique and made her, at best, a run-of-the-mill villain; the doll is scary, the demon controlling her is not.