The Curse of La Llorona Review

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This week we saw The Curse of La Llorona and wow, what a disappointment. This is the only ghost who is 100% kept out by shutting the door or window. This movie could have been so much more than it ended up being, which is just another low effort, jumpscare factory. Even the jumpscares were boring and predictable. The Curse of La Llorona just wants to take your money and give you next to nothing for entertainment value. I don’t know a lot about Mexican folklore, but I don’t think that this does the actual story any justice at all.

The Curse of La Llorona Synopsis

The Curse of La Llorona is directed by Michael Chaves and follows a family of three who recently lost their father, who was a cop. Anna (Linda Cardellini) is the mom of Chris (Roman Christou) and Samantha (Jaynee-Lynne Kinchen). Anna is also a social worker who works for CPS in LA, and at some point, early in the movie, she receives a tip that one of her cases is being handed over to her co-worker because she is too overburdened by single-motherhood. She fights her boss for the right to check on Patricia Alvarez (Patricia Velasquez) and ends up with more than she bargained for.

The Curse of La Llorona Trailer

Through a series of boring events, Anna releases Patricia’s kids from a closet that was protecting them and the kids are gobbled up by a deadish bride called La Llorona.

Patricia seeks vengeance on her caseworker, Anna, and prays to La Llorona that she take Anna’s kids and return her own.

What follows is a predictable and slow jumpscare movie that failed to make me care about anyone at all. I would have been just as happy had La Llorona eaten the whole family.

The Curse of La Llorona Score

4/10

The Curse of La Llorona Legend Facts

After doing some reading and checking out the Wikipedia article, I have compiled the basics of the La Llorona Legend.

The Curse of La Llorona starts in 1673. The folklore for the real story begins with a beautiful but poor woman named Maria. Maria catches the eye of a wealthy man who decides to marry her, much to her chagrin, and they build a life together, complete with two kids. As the man works in many faraway lands, he frequently leaves for work, and each time that he does, he becomes less interested in Maria.

Finally, one day he returns with a new wife and Maria is so distraught that she takes her kids down to the river and drowns them to spite her husband. She realizes what she did, and drowns herself. Upon trying to get into heaven, she is told that she can’t get in until she finds her children and brings them with her.

Check Out Our Review of a Legit Movie, Terrified

Terrified (Aterrados) Movie Review

La Llorona is the ghost or spirit of this sad, crying woman, who hangs out near rivers looking for her kids. She frequently mistakes other kids for her own and drowns them upon realizing that they aren’t the right ones, which seems extreme.

This is a pretty compelling folk tale that has been passed down through many generations of Mexicans, to the point that I have found lots of interesting comments about how people’s grandmothers would warn them about going near the water for fear of being caught by La Llorona.

The Second Trailer

This is a great way to get your kids to respect the power of rivers and bodies of water, by scaring the shit out of them.

Among her wails, she is noted as crying “¡Ay, mi hijos!” which translates to “Oh, my children!” or “Oh, my sons!” If you hear her crying, you are probably marked for death.

The Curse of La Llorona Spoilers

The movie starts in earnest in the 1970s in LA.

Anna is a caseworker and takes it upon herself to visit Patricia Alvarez, who has her kid’s locked in a closet with a bunch of eyes drawn on the door. She has Patricia’s kids taken into protective custody, and Patricia is fit-to-be-tied.

While the kids are in some sort of CPS prison for kids, they are haunted by La Llorona and are low-speed-chased down a series of corridors by the ghost. This was a fairly effective spook within the movie.

Once Patricia’s kids are killed, Anna is called to the “scene of the crime,” which is where the bodies were found, under an overpass in the middle of the night. Because she is a single mother, Anna brings her kids and does the most 70’s thing in this movie – leaves them in the car alone with the doors locked.

Chris, Anna’s son, doesn’t follow instructions well, and ventures out into the night to view the dead bodies. Of course, he meets La Llorona, and she puts hands on him. The car scene, where the kids are holed up in the car with the ghost trying to get in really works well.

The rest of the movie is a big mash-up of slow pacing and predictable jumpscares that culminates in a showdown between a local shaman and La Llorona in the families house.

Part of The Conjuring Universe

The Curse of La Llorona is part of the conjuring universe to the extent that:

 Let’s say we are watching a movie about the world’s greatest detective who solves street level crime cases and whose parents were brutally murdered in front of him when he was a child in a back alley after a show. The whole movie is about this detective who likes to fight crime. We see him build a case; we watch him fight with thugs.

For More Conjuring Check Out Our Review of The Nun

The Nun Review

Then, about 66% of the way through the movie his butler comes into the room where he is reading a newspaper and tells him he needs to remember to eat while handing him a sandwich. As the detective puts down the newspaper to accept the sandwich, the audience gets to see a headline in the newspaper, which reads, “Superman saves Metropolis once again!”

Then our detective goes on to save the day, and we never see or hear about Superman again. That’s the extent that The Curse of La Llorona is in the Conjuring universe. They mention an evil doll who haunts people one time.

Final Recommendations, “who would like this”

If you want to make out with someone in a darkened theater and not care about what’s happening, The Curse of La Llorona is a great movie for you. If you love the Conjuring universe so much that one, single mention of Annabelle is enough to get you to sploosh in your pants, this is 100% your movie.

The Work of Anthony Fountain – HMT Fan

In the podcast we talked a bit about Anthony Fountain and his insane talent with horror makeup. I’m always impressed anytime someone is able to make a living doing what they love – and how could you not love turning people into zombies at a theme park and working on movies/music videos?

Check out some of Anthony’s work with my assumed captions below!

Here is his music showcase on Youtube.