The new horror film The Curse of La Llorona is part of what has become one of the most popular cinematic universes of this decade, a universe filled with instantly recognizable characters and spanning multiple sequels and spinoffs. Of course I’m referring to the cinematic offspring of the hit film The Conjuring (what else?). The surprise horror hit of 2013 has spawned such marvelous movie monsters as Annabelle, a nun, another conjuring, and now the instantly iconic Macarena, uh . . . my Sharona, no, no, wait, la Llorona. Yeah, that’s it!
La Llorona is a Mexican folk tale about a woman who drowned her own children and then felt bad about it. Also called “the weeping woman,” her calling cards are weeping and water; if you hear a woman weeping or see some water on the ground, time to skedaddle. The very thin plot revolves around la Llorona wanting to kill children, and when Anna (Linda Cardellini) accidentally, and only with the best of intentions, kind of sort of gets another woman’s kids killed by the ghost, that woman prays to la Llarona to avenge her and go kill Anna’s kids. I hate to say that last part is basically a spoiler, because you don’t find that out until halfway through the film’s mercifully short 93 minute runtime, but it is, because not much else happens besides people walking alone through shadowy rooms (mostly children—where are your parents?!) as la Llorona makes creaky noises and cuts the lights. After a few fake-out scares, the ghost lady will pop up, literally out of nowhere, and then you jump because it’s really loud.
First-time director Michael Chaves does the best he can with the bare-bones script. There’s a kinetic tracking shot through the house to introduce Anna and her children as they frantically get ready for school, as well as a few other notable shots that show some promise for his next feature (can you guess what it is? It’s a third Conjuring). But the writers—a duo whose only other credit is some movie in theaters right now called Five Feet Apart—seemed to crib every trope from every haunting movie with no real endgame in mind. The majority of this movie is painfully dull, and that’s not for lack of Linda Cardellini trying to inject some passion as she protects her kids (screaming “get out of my house!” while shaking a baseball bat at a ghost), or Raymond Cruz (Breaking Bad’s Tuco) bringing just a pinch of charisma to his otherwise morose, excommunicated exorcist. These bright spots are far too little for what ends up being a very boring movie. I wish I could say this movie was so bad it’s good, but unfortunately The Curse of La Llorona ain’t no “lol-o-rama.”
