'Annabelle Comes Home' director reveals creepy voodoo doll incident on set

Apparently, there were all manner of unsettling incidents on the set of scary doll sequel Annabelle Comes Home.

There were reported incidents of random power outages, unexplained nosebleeds, and watches stopping for no reason.

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But director Gary Dauberman has a real peach, and it involves a voodoo doll.

Asked by The Hollywood Reporter whether it was in fact him who orchestrated the weird happenings to keep a sense of unease on set, he laughed: “Oh, man. I wish I was that organised to where I could think beyond what was happening in the movie. Yeah, you’re right: it really was all designed to get them more and more scared and to use that within the scene.

“But, these events are the reasons why we have these sets blessed by priests at the beginning of every production.

“I had this voodoo doll made that I wanted to feature in the movie, and Tom Spence, our prop guy, built it so beautifully. I was featuring it in a shot, and Tom suddenly couldn’t find it.

“Twenty minutes later, he came up to me and said that it was on the next stage over, which we weren’t using for anything. But, the voodoo doll was burnt; someone or something had burned it. It was singed.

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“So, I did not end up using that in the movie, because I did not want to invite any sort of evil onto the set that day. It was a hard day as it was. Things like that always seem to end up happening on these movies. I don’t know what that means, but I think it’s pretty cool as long as no one gets hurt.”

The movie is the seventh to appear in the Conjuring horror movie universe, the sequel to 2014's Annabelle and 2017's Annabelle: Creation.

Starring Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, McKenna Grace and Madison Iseman, it lands in the UK on July 10.