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The setting: A mid-century Andrew Wyeth landscape with an Edward Hopper house. A busload of orphans and a kindly nun move into a mansion run by the saturnine Mr. Mullins and his recluse wife. We know why the Mullinses are so gloomy: Years earlier, their daughter Annabelle was killed in a car crash, and her old room remains stuffed with creepy vintage toys.

Orphan Janice (Talitha Bateman), crippled by polio and neglected by the other girls, is quickly lured into the room, where she finds an unpleasant-looking doll and winds up terrorized by a demonic force in the form of the dead daughter. Only her big-eyed, dorky friend Linda (Lulu Wilson) guesses what’s happening, and no adult believes her until people start getting ripped apart.

Joule Zelman is Stranger EverOut’s arts calendar editor and, not coincidentally, suffers from chronic FOMO. She spends her free time writing stories about hauntings and humanimals. She wants you dinguses...