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In the 2014 movie Annabelle, near the end, it's revealed that Annabelle the doll is being possessed by a summoned demon and needs a soul sacrifice in order to leave the child of the protagonist alone from harm.

An elderly woman that the protagonist has befriended a while ago sacrifices her soul by killing herself to save the child. The demon accepts it and leaves the protagonist's family alone.

However, at the beginning, we see a young woman named Annabelle from a devil worshiping cult, killing herself in a ritualistic manner when they perform the summoning ritual of the demon at the protagonist's home. Wouldn't this mean a soul already has been offered to the demon at the very beginning?

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According to this earlier script, the cult's failure to kill their victim (completing the ceremony) resulted in the demon becoming attached to an object rather than erupting fully-formed into the world.

Additionally, the cult lady's soul wouldn't have been a useful conduit for the demon because it wasn't 'innocent', hence why the cult couple needed a sacrifice rather than simply sacrificing each other.

CARL: The Order of the Ram -- based on what you told me -- this ceremony they were attempting required them to take their own blood and the life of an innocent to take the soul... So that explains why she killed her parents and went after you... a pregnant woman. Nothing more innocent than the life of an unborn child... But since you're sitting here, they didn't complete the task.

MIA: Something came through...

[continued]

Carl: And they don't attach themselves to locations. They attach themselves to objects. Using them as conduits to ultimately get what they want...

MIA: The soul of an innocent...

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  • For the record, I've only read the script, so I don't know whether this all holds up to scrutiny compared to the final product
    – Valorum
    Commented Jul 14, 2021 at 7:05
  • This definitely answers the question, but I'm 100 sure this wasn't in the movie. In fact, there was no character named Carl in the movie. In the script you shared, it's the name of the bookstore owner. I think it's the initial script. In the movie the bookstore owner is a woman named Evelyn. I wonder why they cut off this important dialogue from the movie. Here's the script that's almost identical to the movie. It has the gender flipped version of Carl and without the particular dialogue about the ceremony.
    – Sandun
    Commented Jul 14, 2021 at 8:56
  • @Sandun - Cheers. I've updated to reflect that I'm using an earlier script. Reading them both, I strongly suspect that they trimmed the backstory because it's great for worldbuilding, but largely unneeded in the film itself where the motivation of the baddies is fairly self-explanatory (e.g. they tried to kill the baby and the demon is trying to finish the job)
    – Valorum
    Commented Jul 14, 2021 at 9:27
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    @Sandun - Note that the one you've linked isn't a script, it's a (fan-written) transcript of the film's dialogue.
    – Valorum
    Commented Jul 14, 2021 at 12:56

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