In 2013, The Conjuring was released, chronicling one of the adventures of real life ghost hunters Ed and Lorraine Warren. The film managed to be one of the most refreshing horror movies in recent years, telling a compelling drama while also managing to be a creepy horror movie. The film has gone on to become a successful franchise, with one direct sequel and four spinoff movies. Though while the sequel - The Conjuring 2, another true story - was just as effective as the original, the spinoffs are a mixed bag. All original stories, while some are better than others, none have ever reached the same frightening heights as the main series. And that trend continues with the latest standalone feature, The Curse of La Llorona.
Taking place in the 1970s, the film follows a social worker named Anna (Linda Cardellini), who rescues two children from a client whom she believes is abusing the two boys. When the boys turn up dead, Anna learns that their mother was trying to protect them from a spirit named La Llorona. Not believing her at first, Anna soon finds both herself and her children becoming continuously haunted by La Llorona, and look to find a way to rid themselves of the ghost.
The film is based on an old Mexican folklore, though those unfamiliar with the tale won’t find themselves enlightened by this movie. The film doesn’t exactly do a great job explaining who La Llorona is or how they work. The bare minimum is given to the audience, explaining that it’s the spirit of a woman who goes around killing children, though really doesn’t do anything beyond that.
Even from the beginning, which is meant to serve as an origin for the ghost, doesn’t really effectively establish much. The opening moment shows the woman who goes on to become the titular spirit shifting from a normal mother to the murderous woman off-screen and reappearing with no explanation, before cutting to the present day. Rather than feeling like a creepy origin moment, this scene comes off as a cheap narrative tactic meant to just convey visual flare.
If the establishing scene didn’t convey much, the rest of the movie does even less. There are constant scenes of La Llorona briefly appearing, grabbing Anna and her children for a moment and burning their skin, before disappearing. La Llorona appears mostly near water, and it can be at any point during the day or night. No reason is given why the mysterious spirit only appears for a split second, why it just attacks for a moment, or what it’s true purpose is beyond just wanting to kill children. The movie often leads to further bewilderment for the audience rather than offering clarification.
Many of the La Llorona scenes resort to cheap jump scares, which come at an alarmingly rapid-fire pace in this movie. While the main Conjuring movies are exemplary for their distance from the cliched tactic, The Curse of La Llorona constantly finds itself going down this road. Any time one thinks a jump scare is coming, it happens, and it deprives much of the movie of having any actual thrills. It can be creepy and atmospheric at times, with some nice visual tricks that are well-shot, but the film will quickly then resort to familiar tropes, undermining a legitimately creepy moment
The film does get better in the second half as Anna enlists the help of a former priest played by Raymond Cruz (whom audiences may better recognize as Tuco from Breaking Bad). While it doesn’t fully redeem itself, it does contain more moments that are a bit scarier than the jump scares constantly seen through the first half of the movie. The film also offers a bit of levity during the second half, thanks to Cruz’s surprisingly funny performance. These moments contain quiet deadpan humor and are placed in the movie in such a way that the audience can still take the scene a bit seriously so that they’re not completely removed from the moment.
The performances in general are actually one of the only saving graces of this film. Linda Cardellini does a great job here, even if she doesn’t necessarily have the greatest material to work with. And the performances from Roman Christou and Jaynee-Lynne Kinchen, who play her two children, are also surprisingly well-done. The portrayal of children in horror movies can easily be either manipulative or over-the-top, and these performances are anything but, which is surprising considering how generic the material is. The performances feel grounded and their chemistry with Cardellini is solid. It’s easy to believe them as a real family that the audience can care about, and despite the film’s middling plot and lack of actual scares, one may find themselves easily rooting for these three.
The Curse of La Llorona isn’t necessarily a bad movie, but it’s easily forgettable. While it had the potential of telling a unique, frightening story, especially when it already had an actual tale to base its story off of, it instead treads a lot of familiar ground. It relies too heavily on cheap jump scares as both a thrill tactic and narrative tactic, with many moments of the titular spirit just appearing and disappearing rather than actually explaining how it actually works. The only elements that make this movie not a total letdown are all the performances as well as a decent second half. While it’s entertaining enough to sit through once, it not only fails as being an effective entry into The Conjuring series, but also as a standalone great horror movie.
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