The Curse of La Llorona (Review)
The Curse of La Llorona Proves to be a Mediocre Addition to The Conjuring Universe.
The Conjuring Universe has quickly grown over the past few years and the newest installment, The Curse of La Llorona, feels right at home among the other films in this horror franchise. The only problem is that I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not. Sure the films in this shared universe directed by James Wan have been some of the best horror movies to grace the silver screen in the past few years, but the spin-offs have been less than stellar for the most part. Still, it’s safe to say that while The Curse of La Llorona might not be the best in the series, it’s nowhere near the worst. Instead, I would say it rest firmly in the middle.
The Curse of La Llorona is based on the Mexican folktale of the weeping woman cured to wander the Earth after drowning her children in a jealous rage. It’s a pretty messed up tale. This version of the tale though takes place in Los Angeles during the 1970s when a Child Services Worker (Linda Cardellini) finds herself tormented by the weeping woman. After getting mixed up in a case involving the malicious spirit, she finds herself and her children targeted with no one to turn for help.
Blumhouse studios seems to have a soft spot for giving directors their first-time feature big breaks with horror films, and Michael Chaves is no exception to that. Of course, The Curse of La Llorona is still produced under the watchful eye of James Wan, but it lacks the magic The Conjuring films managed to capture. So, if you’re hoping for a truly terrifying film you’ll most likely be sorely disappointed with this one. That isn’t to say that it doesn’t have a few moments that might make you jump, but it lacks any real menace to it. After all, this is a vengeful spirit whose background is that she had a freak out moment and did something incredibly stupid after catching her husband cheating on her. It sucks for her, but there’s nothing really scary about that origin. It’s hardly on par with demonic ones we’ve seen in the other entries in the shared universe, such as The Nun or Annabelle.
The Curse of La Llorona is a film mostly filled with jumpscares, which is a shame given how much that could have been done with the weeping woman mythos (just look to the first episode of Supernatural). Charves manages to create a few interesting aspects to the tale, but overall The Curse of La Llorona never takes any of it far enough. Instead, this is just another ghost story and hardly worthy of the weight that the source material carries with it. More importantly, it feels almost shoe-horned into The Conjuring Universe. The only element tying it to the Warren’s is Tony Amendola’s Father Perez from the mediocre Annabelle film. All in all, The Curse of La Llorona feels like a movie that had some pretty big shoes to fill even before it started filming. Unfortunately, it never really manages to grow into them.
Even though The Curse of La Llorona falling short in a number of ways, Chaves manages to prove himself a capable budding director. Though he’s a bit rough around the edges, he shows a great deal of technical knowledge when it comes to the genre. However, it feels as though he can’t see the forest from the trees when it comes to his directorial debut. He has a keen eye for detail, especially when it comes to camera work, which is filled with Dutch angles to show how off balance the world of the film’s characters has become (and plenty of scary elements inspired by The Evil Dead films). His overall vision seems like it lacks overall cohesion, which tends to leave the film meandering about when the titular ghost isn’t terrorizing the family. In other words, it’s a movie that only has moments of dread in it, but can’t seem to carry it further than a few minutes at a time.
To be completely honest, I’m pretty ambivalent when it comes to The Curse of La Llorona. It’s a film that’s neither good nor bad. It’s production values and performances are good enough to prevent it from just another horror movie, but there’s nothing truly memorable about it. In other words, it’s well worth seeing for hardcore fans of horror movies, especially because it’s not that bad. However, those who aren’t as fanatical about the genre probably won’t find The Curse of La Llorona worth the price of admission.
