Conjuring Universe fans get ready because the newest edition to the franchise will be in theaters soon!
Annabelle Comes Home serves as the sequel to 2014’s Annabelle and to 2017’s Annabelle: Creation, and is the seventh installment of the franchise. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga make their grand return, reprising their roles of Ed and Lorraine Warren. The film is directed and written by Gary Dauberman who is no stranger to the Conjuring franchise. The Knockturnal was able to catch up with Dauberman for an interview on the Warner Bros. lot. Check out below what Dauberman has to say about his directorial debut, hints about what to expect and creating a film off of real life events!
The Knockturnal: I may be wrong, but I feel like there’s a Halloween vibe going on here?
Gary Dauberman: Best thing you could ever say to me! One of my favorite horror movies of all time. The course of the movie takes place in the course of one night, a lot like Halloween so it has the same sort of…I hope, that same kind of build. Where we’re sort of building towards something, we get some character moments early on, people get settled in and then we’re off to the races kind of thing. But I thought that was sort of a unique take or something we haven’t done yet in the Conjuring universe, a sort of confined sense of time as opposed to over a week or a couple of days or a couple of nights. It’s just a day in the life and night in the life of our girls.
The Knockturnal: So how integral is the parent/child dynamic to this film because it seems to be something that’s at the essence of almost all the Conjuring films?
Gary Dauberman: It’s pretty important. It’s Judy [Mckenna Grae] sort of trying to wrestle with who her parents are and how they’re being viewed. As we learn in Conjuring 2, not everyone believes what they do, in Conjuring 1 they’re called kooks and to her they’re her parents. They’re the ones who make her go to bed on time, love her and all that stuff and I think that’s got to be tough for a kid. And as more and more people start to discover what they do, it just gets harder and harder for her. So, it’s really just sort of about will she come to accept what they do, kind of ask those questions, so it’s pretty essential.
The Knockturnal: How much are you using Ed and Lorraine’s actual story in this? How much reality of their lives with their daughter are you putting into this or is it completely fictionalized?
Gary Dauberman: I talked to Judy a lot, the actual Judy Warren when she came on set, just what it was like to be their daughter, they were gone all the time. I think about it in terms of my own kids and stuff and just being away a lot, stuff you deal with as a parent. I wanted to see them just as parents or just as a married couple as opposed to just paranormal investigators that we see in the other movies and see what that relationship was like. I wrote the scene about Ed’s poor sense of direction before I learned from Judy that Ed had a terrible sense of direction. That’s a conversation we would have, she remembers that a lot. I wanted to ask about the things I couldn’t find out in the books, the countless books that have been written on them and by them. The fact that they loved diners, they would seek out the best diners in town. Things like that, I just love that. It felt like I was getting secrets or something that not a lot of people knew. There’s a nice peek behind the curtain of what their family life was like. It was great to spend time in their house, the movie takes place in their house, which hopefully becomes its own kind of character. There was a lot that you could do, and it has its own sort of challenges and limitations to it.
The Knockturnal: So, we’ve seen that scene with the original owners of Annabelle speaking to Ed and Lorraine several times in the Annabelle movies, but we haven’t really gotten the real story. Is that going to be any more relevant in this movie?
Gary Dauberman: I feel like we got told that story in the opening of Conjuring 1. I felt like the story we didn’t hear about was the ride home and bringing the doll home because there were a couple of events that happened while they were on their way home that we wanted to dig into.
The Knockturnal: How much will we see of the actual ride home?
Gary Dauberman: I remember as a kid in bed and your parents are out for the night, you would hear the squeak of the breaks and you kind of sit up, you’re woken up out of your slumber and you can see your parents coming and you can hear the hush whispers and stuff and I thought like, it’s interesting. What if you poke your head out and they’re bringing this doll home? What must that be like through the child’s point of view, from Judy? That’s something that happened to her quite a bit, not just the doll but with all these other artefacts. We get to see what that’s like, that sort of helps kick off the rest of the movie.
The Knockturnal: How many dolls do you have on the set?
Gary Dauberman: Three. We have one, stunt doll which if we wanted to throw it around and stuff, we could. The other dolls are very fragile. So, we have one if we need to drop a doll or if I need to take out my aggression or anxiety…
The Knockturnal: How much time have you spent with the actual doll?
Gary Dauberman: I decided early on in this process, working on these movies, to go after the movies are over. Sometimes in my head I’m like, I don’t know if I ever, is she pissed at me? Is she happy with the notoriety? Is she upset?
The Knockturnal: Do you think she’s mad that she’s not a Raggedy Ann doll?
Gary Dauberman: I think she’s mad all the time!
The Knockturnal: This is your first time directing as well as writing so how different is it to be able to bring your own vision to life?
Gary Dauberman: The short answer is, very different. I didn’t have to be so specific in the script because I knew I could just email the people who needed to be, the script felt like an ongoing conversation with myself. Just sort of flushed out ideas and as these great collaborators come on board like, Michael Burgess the DP, of course working with James [Wan] and Peter Saffron and the guys at New Line and Atomic Monster, it just feels like an ongoing conversation but sooner or later the director always in the past has taken over the conversation sort of steer it towards whatever they wanted but this time I was able to keep chugging along, which is nice.
The Knockturnal: Is this something that you always wanted to do?
Gary Dauberman: It was always what I wanted to do but I always wanted it to be the right thing. I loved horror and I certainly always loved the Conjuring franchise. I had other opportunities and it just never felt right and this one felt right to me because I get to work with people I love, I get to work with people who I respect, and they have fantastic ideas and it felt like a safe environment and I care deeply about this franchise. It felt like the right time. It’s been such an education, so to be able to apply some of the stuff I learned, hopefully in the right way, was a great experience. I shoot it all and have Kurt, sit there and put it all together has been great too. He’s done such an amazing job on the other movies, it felt again, very safe. Just having conversations with him throughout the process, like are we getting what I need. It’s so cool to shoot stuff and then a couple days later see it.
The Knockturnal: How many takes do you do?
Gary Dauberman: It depends. But there was a playfulness that I wanted on set because we’re sort of all in this together and I wanted if someone had a good idea, lets run with it and see. So we did a bunch of takes I guess but nothing crazy.
The Knockturnal: What’s James’ involvement been in this? He created this but how much does he step in with this film in particular?
Gary Dauberman: He’s always very involved. From the story standpoint, from the get go. We talk about the initial idea, he’s reading the scripts, he’s having ideas, he comes to set, he comes to the edit room, he’s always very involved. It worked out to my benefit because he was back from Australia, he was finishing editing while I was shooting so it was great because they were editing here on the lot. So it was a lot of, “James what do I do?” He’s just super super involved.
Annabelle Comes Home will be in theaters June 28, 2019.
