Today is apparently National Doll Day, which seems like as good a reason as any for Warner Bros. and New Line to remind everyone about the existence of the Conjuring series of films and its breakout spin-off star, Annabelle The Scary Doll. Apparently, some New Line employees decided to have some fun with the Annabelle doll last month when they were allowed to return to their offices to pick up some equipment, despite the fact that “having some fun with the Annabelle doll” is pretty much the thing that gets everyone killed in every one of those movies. Using an iPhone, they made a short video of the doll in funny situations, the premise being that Annabelle was left unattended in the New Line office when everyone went home to quarantine and—with nobody around to terrorize or posses or murder—it (she?) has grown increasingly bored.
The video has powerful “we have fun here” office humor energy, which is to say that it’s funnier in concept than in practice, but apparently it was a big enough hit internally at Warner Bros. that Deadline says it was included in a company newsletter and was quickly “spread around to other divisions.” Now, it being National Doll Day, Warner Bros. has released this hit video to the public, and while we would normally take a more critical eye to something that is really just an ad, the fact that the next Conjuring movie has been delayed to 2021 and the last Annabelle movie came out last year means this really isn’t promoting anything particularly timely. It’s just a fun video about an evil toy. Also, Annabelle’s blank stare and the empty office setting have some nice meme potential, as evidenced by this funny response to New Line’s tweet: