The Curse of La Llorona review: The Conjuring universe expands again, this time with a previously unseen antagonist in a seventies tale of the mythic weeping woman.
Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
Recently single mother and social worker Anna (Linda Cardellini) is called to the Alvarez house, a family she has been working with for years. Once there, she notices that the mother, Patricia (Patricia Velasquez), is extremely agitated, ranting that she has to save her sons from an unseen force known as La Llorona aka The Weeping Woman. Anna initially dismisses the wild claims, but soon finds herself rethinking the situation when it appears that La Llorona has set her sights on her own children. With the help of a renegade faith-healer (played by Raymond Cruz), she must battle to save her children from becoming the next victims.
Thanks to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, these days it seems that in order to be deemed viable, films must connect together somehow, and The Curse of La Llorona is the latest film set within the universe started by The Conjuring. We say ‘set’ in the loosest of ways as the link between films is rather weak. That link is Tony Amendola’s Father, Perez (last seen in Annabelle), whom only appears in a couple of scenes. He basically tells Anna he believes her because of his past experiences, but informs her that his friends can’t help and points her in the direction of faith-healer Rafael. His inclusion feels clunky and cheap, his appearance only seeming relevant to connect to the previous films so that it’ll suck in fans of the series to generate higher box-office takings.
Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
A good horror movie is only ever as good as its monster, and sadly La Llorona just isn’t that scary. Visually she’s a mix of Insidious’ Bride, and fellow Conjuring universe baddie, the nun. On paper I imagine this sounded really good – let’s mix two pre-existing scary beings into one super scary one, but the result just looks rather silly. The silliness is further exacerbated by the manner in which she appears and interacts with the world around her. Typically the films within this universe ramp-up the creep factor during a scare sequence with the villain, but here everything seems a little too comedic.
Related: Annabelle review
Further issues with La Llorona stem from a lack of information about her lore. We’re told the traditional tale of a weeping woman – a scorned woman whom murders her children in a fit of jealous rage and then regrets it, but nothing more. The film starts with her origin in 1673 Mexico before jumping to 1973 Los Angeles. How did she get there? Also, despite grabbing and marking her intended child victims on her first meeting, it inexplicably takes days for her to actually be able to take them away. This obviously gives our heroes the time they need to battle her, but the reason for her not being able to snatch immediately is never explained.
The Curse of La Llorona isn’t necessarily a bad film, it’s just more of what we’ve already seen before. Granted, the cinematography is quite effective in places, the camera moves and flows around locations in rather nifty ways, but it is so like what we’ve seen before that it is almost immediately forgettable. After poorly developing its villain, the film’s biggest sin is an over reliance on jump scares. The convention has become the trademark of the universe, but as with previous film The Nun, if you use them too much, they lose their impact.
The die-hard franchise fans may feel compelled to give this a watch so as to not miss out on anything, but in reality it all feels like a standard horror.
The Curse of La Llorona review by Kat Hughes, April 2019.
The Curse of La Llorona arrives in cinemas on Friday 3rd May 2019.
