The Tender Hauntings

To paraphrase a former president, there they go again!   Just when you thought it was safe to collect dolls in public, another creepy doll movie hits the theaters.  I have mixed feelings about this type of film.  I have given a conference paper at The Midwest Modern Language Association Convention on Dolls in Horror Movies when the Convention theme was "Play, No, Seriously" and I love "ghoulie/ghostie" dolls at Halloween. I cheerfully reviewed "Creepy A** Dolls" because it was a tongue-in-cheek, funny approach to the subject of haunted dolls.
"Annabelle" is based on an earlier film, "The Conjuring," which was about an allegedly "haunted" Raggedy Ann Doll called Annabelle.  The original doll is now housed in Warren's Occult Museum and is featured in the web museum, "The Haunted Doll Museum."  Annabelle the Raggedy Ann has been called the Devil Doll and other names Johnny Gruelle would not approve of.   The Warrens are an interesting couple who go around exorcising "possesse" objects, and more often than not, acquiring them for their museum. You can find the story at the New England Society for Psychic Research web page.
In the new film, a young couple expecting a baby happen upon a doll with a murderous past.  Mia, the expectant mother, puts the doll in the nursery she is fixing for the new baby, among other beloved dolls in her collection.  Then, of course, the bloody mayhem and destructive activities begin.  Yet, as one review puts it, the film is not really about the doll, anyway; it is just a vehicle for the demonicspirits that possess it.  We know nothing about the dolls value, why it is rare, what kind of doll it is, who made it, etc.
Part of me can't help but wonder if there will be licensed dolls and products from the film.  After all, it is possible to buy Talking Tina from the famous Telly Savalas "Twilight Zone" episode, and the little doll from "Triology of Terror" is also available.  Both are a little pricey, but character and celebrity doll collectors like movie-themed dolls and they do well as cross over collectibles.

The nice folks who run The Haunted Doll Museum on the Web have been very nice to me, and have followed my Tweets, but I confess I don't believe in haunted anything.  It would be nice to sit down with M. Jumeau and M. Bru to talk doll making, and to have tea with Armand Marseilles and Madame Alexander, but I don't believe it will ever happen, either.

In view of the recent media mess in San Clemente with the dolls I call "The Talega 11", I wonder if doll collectors need more "creepy publicity?"

Certainly, I can laugh at myself.  Our local haunted house has a Baby Doll Room, bathed in eerie red light, with zombie babies and skeleton dolls mixed in with all types of vintage dolls invarious stages of repair and disrepair.  One year, when I have time, I'm going to volunteer to be the guide in that room.  I love that room, and all the other animatronics and mechanical Halloween dolls and mannikins  featured.  I love them because they are types of dolls and play a part in doll history and art.  I appreciate the imagination and craftsmanship it took to make them, and to display them.  They don't scare me.  Our local talk show hostess, a celebrity in her own mind if no one else's, made a point of saying to the local movie reviewer that she "hates anything like dolls that move!"  Must be why her staff treated me so rudely when I was a guest representing our local American Association of University Women group with a short program on historical dolls.  Oh well.