Ignoring the eerie warning of a troubled mother suspected of child endangerment, a social worker and her own small kids are soon drawn into a frightening supernatural realm.
“The Curse of La Llorona” is another entry to “The Conjuring” Universe, and a very good addition I might add. Annabelle even makes a brief appearance, just long enough for the audience to connect the dots, and because the story takes place in 1973, the same timeframe as the events that have transpired throughout the two “Conjuring” movies, there could very well be more films in this new series that could crossover with paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson & Vera Farmiga). Mexican folklore talks about a young, beautiful peasant woman named Maria who lived in the 1800s and who fell in love with a wealthy nobleman. After bearing two sons, her husband eventually left her for a younger woman and in a fit of rage, she drowned her two young boys. After realizing her mistake, she searched the river for them but the waters had washed their bodies away and heartbroken at her own actions, she took her own life. Not being allowed into heaven until she had her two sons with her, she was reduced to walking the earth, stuck between the land of the living and the dead, and any children she came across, she would kidnap and drown, mistaking them for her own. This is Maria’s backstory, also known as La Llorona (The Weeping Woman) and legend says if you hear her crying, you should run the other way.
It is 1973 and Anna Tate-Garcia (Linda Cardellini) is a social worker who is raising her two young children, Samantha (Jaynee-Lynne Kinchen) and Chris (Roman Christou). Her husband, a cop, was recently killed in the line of duty and she struggles to raise her two kids and work a full-time job. When she is informed that one of her cases, a woman named Patricia Alvarez (Patricia Velasquez) and her two young boys have not been heard from in days, along with a police officer, she stops by to make sure everything is okay. When she enters the apartment, she finds the two boys locked in a closet with bruises on their arms, and Patricia is taken away. Anna tries to encourage the boys that they will have a safe place for the night but they tell her they will not be safe anywhere they go. Later that night, Anna receives a phone call that the two boys are dead from an apparent drowning. When she arrives on the scene, Patricia turns up, cursing Anna and telling her that La Llorona will take her children away. As time goes by, both Chris and Samantha begin seeing a strange woman draped in a white gown and veil. Initially, they are just sightings but eventually, the woman attacks them, leaving bruises on their arms, much like the ones found on Patricia’s two young boys. After Anna sees and interacts with La Llorona, she takes Chris and Samantha to her local Catholic Church and speaks with Father Perez (Tony Amendola).
Once there, she tells him what happened, showing him the bruises on her kids’ arms as well as her own, and when he states that it could be weeks before the Church could possibly intervene, she tells him they don’t have that long. He then recommends talking with Rafael Olvera (Raymond Cruz), a man who was once a priest and is now a local shaman, whose practices of mysticism are very unorthodox. He agrees to help Anna and her kids and informs them that they will need to go back to their house in order to confront La Llorona but even with all of Rafael’s extensive experience battling evil deities, La Llorona might just prove to be the one he cannot defeat.
“The Curse of La Llorona” has some genuinely frightening moments and thankfully, relies more on scare tactics over bloodshed in order to achieve its goal. When we first see La Llorona, she is obscured by the shadows but as the film progresses, we gradually begin to see more of her and when we finally see her face, she emits a deafening diabolical scream as her mouth becomes elongated and black tears stream down her cheeks. This visual and auditory combination is indeed horrifying and I would highly recommend not bringing younger children to see it unless you want them sleeping beside you in your bed for a long time. It was refreshing to see a major Hollywood movie utilize, as a story, Mexican folklore instead of fictional American ones. La Llorona is very similar to a folklore legend in my homeland of Ireland, called the Banshee, and while she does indeed wail, unlike La Llorona, she does not come after you or your children, instead, her crying is a warning that someone in your family, near or far, is about to die. Director Michael Chaves achieves a perfect balance of drama and scares in his feature-film directorial debut. He will be directing “The Conjuring 3” and based on “The Curse of La Llorona,” I eagerly await that franchise’s next iteration.
In theaters Friday, April 19th
