Danger! Do Not Touch: Viral Transmission, Tactile Object Disrecognition, and the Annabelle Series

Abstract

Abstract: Horror films, according to conventional wisdom, excite in their audiences certain tactile or somatic responses: for example, they might make our skin crawl or cause us to flinch. However, the three installments of the Annabelle series represent a class of films with an anti-phenomenological tenor, one that disrupts the sense of community or shared experience that often results from multiple viewers simultaneously screaming or fidgeting in their seats. These films feature a demonic children's doll that figuratively inflicts on the characters in each film three different types of touch disorder, muddling for them the sensual, tangible, and associational dimensions of the objects onscreen. The series, then, warns us not to "touch" these objects (starting with Annabelle), conveying the idea that visually caressing them might endanger us or make us susceptible to demonic influence. For, in the Annabelle films, to engage in these common tactile-kinesthetic modes of cinematic spectatorship is to risk contamination and even insensateness: more than scaring us out of our wits or out of ourselves, the monster scares us out of our usual ways of making sense of the world's material realities.