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
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojuqj8_wWo8
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 LlaronaPre-order the Blu-Ray for your collectionPre-Order on Amazon
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.
Image taken from this blog.
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
https://www.horrormovietalk.com/2019/03/20/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
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGUiHfX1qpk
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,