The Curse of La Llorona

"The Curse of La Llorona" is a horror film with beautiful cinematography and atmosphere. The cast is not bad and the effects are also good. Unfortunately, the story is absolutely unoriginal, indeed a great collection of clichés. The film gives the sensation of Deja vu and the viewer feels that he or she has already seen it all before, frustrating those with expectation of watching a creepy horror movie. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "A Maldição da Chorona" ("The Curse of the Weeping Woman")

Run-of-the-mill cliche horror with jump scares you see coming a mile off. The characters make baffling decisions and the ending is poor. You may have some fun if you go in with extremely low expectations.

The story sounded really fascinating and do have an appreciation for horror. The cover looked creepy and the film did look pretty good. 'The Curse of La Llorona' has also been compared to 'The Conjuring' films/universe (with it having the same producers), and being somebody who really liked 'The Conjuring' and its sequel that immediately was enough to get me stoked in seeing it. So was expecting quite a bit in a way, and really did want to like it regardless of its polarising reception.

Sadly, am going to have to agree with those that didn't care for 'The Curse of La Llorona', emphasis on didn't care for, that doesn't mean outright hate. It is not as bad as has been said by others or a disgrace to film-making, it has its moments/good things. However, it should have been much better and really goes downhill after a promising start. Of 'The Conjuring' universe films, for me only 'The Nun' is worse but only consider this marginally better rather than infinitely so.

As said, there are good things. The photography is pleasing to look at and has an atmospheric look that one wishes was reflected in the rest of the film, 'The Curse of La Llorona' is not a cheap-looking film and the location is both beautiful and eerie. Also felt that Linda Cardellini and the children acquitted themselves very well here, Cardellini especially is very committed in a role that is far removed from Velma Dinkley and doesn't overact or underplay it (instead she is just right).

It started off very promisingly, with it being genuinely creepy and suspenseful with a set up that draws one in and intrigues. A few creepy scares early on, and sadly there is quite a big emphasis on moments.

Because 'The Curse of La Llorona' falls downhill quite badly too early and not only never recovers it also gets progressively worse. There are often complaints regarding horror films of not being enough jump scares or scares in general, there is also such thing as too much of them. The latter is the case here and too many of them are ruined by too obvious build ups to them thanks to very predictably placed, overused and too loud sound effects. There is very little new here either in the scares, there is a seen it all before and much better feel throughout. The dull pacing, especially in the middle, and the overuse of La Llorona herself (looking quite freaky but the characterisation had too much trying-too-hard) kill the suspense and any kind of atmosphere for that matter.

Morever, 'The Curse of La Llorona' can get very silly in the latter stages, with some truly baffling character behaviours that are facepalm-inducing and an ending that is not just ridiculous and rushed but can be seen from a long way off. The general predictability of most of the film is a big problem here. The rest of the acting is lacking, with Raymond Cruz giving a performance devoid of charisma or energy which gives the impression that he is not lead actor material. The pacing when it all goes downhill is all over the place and goes dead in the too many uneventful stretches in the middle. The dialogue is banal and can sound very awkward, while there is an inexperienced quality to the direction, not the visuals but in generating suspense and atmosphere and making the drama interesting.

Altogether, promising start but descends into well filmed mediocrity. 4/10

If I were a schoolteacher grading 'The Curse of La Llorona' I would pass it, but absolutely minimally (I believe in America they call that a C-). It did just enough to keep me from hating it and nothing more. The film started off with a semi-decent opening scene. It wasn't overly long but it did enough to set the tone for the movie. Then the tone drastically changes in the next scene, then goes back to trying to be scary in the next, then everything is back to normal, then scary again. This continues for quite a lot of the movie and it really made it hard to stay in the suspenseful mood the film was trying to achieve.

The problems with the spirit were very distracting by the end of the film. Very rarely in films like this does anything make a lot of sense, but at least they're not usually as in your face as they are in this film. A spirit that can seemingly do anything, can also only walk through one door to enter a house? An embarrassingly bad piece of writing there. The rules just seemed to be made up as they went along to fit the story.

The film's biggest strength is, as you might imagine, 'La Llorona' herself. She is suitably creepy. She was also used a lot which I liked. Often in these Conjuring universe movies the title character goes missing for large parts of the movie. That can't be said here. The film relies on a lot of jump-scares, some of them are actually done very well and caught me off guard. 'The Curse of La Llorona' does just enough to get by, but there are worse things you could do than going out to see it.

"The Bad Spell of My Sharona". "What's the Capital of Arizona?". "I'd Rather Be in Barcelona!". The metaphysical entity that has now manifested into "The Conjuring Universe" has certainly had its highs, mostly with James Wan involved, and lows. "The Benefits of Swedish Krona" may just be the lowest point that this franchise has dipped to. It's rare, especially for me, for a horror film to be completely ineffective yet director Chaves (his debut!) releases a relentless amount of jump scares that were both predictable and tamer than a domestic cat. A case worker uncovers a dark secret involving a weeping ghost known as La Llorona who haunts families and takes children. It comes as no surprise that she starts experiencing her curse.

"The Woman from Oklahoma" is frustratingly poor, mostly stemming down from the atrocious writing. The expositional script is nearly absent of any character depth for both the titular ghoul and Velma (forgive me, but Cardellini will always be my Velma). The loose connection with "The Conjuring Universe" is that the father, who explains the entire motives of La La Loner, is the same character from the original 'Annabelle'. That's it. The amount of exposition, for a plot that really doesn't need any whatsoever, is atrocious. And yet, somehow, we practically have no idea why La Macarena is stealing children and how she came about doing this!? All these pathetic explanations and no frickin' depth.

Cardellini was sensationally good. Seriously she saves the film from being the worst of the year (thus far...). Displaying a range of emotions for her children and a ridiculously commanding presence. Sweet lord, I love her. But Velma clearly needed the rest of Mystery Inc. to satisfyingly unmask La Diploma. When Chaves decides to unveil the ghost in the opening sequence in her full form, it leaves little to the imagination. This therefore results in every jump scare (and there are many...) and suspense-driven camera movements to be ineffective.

There is some ingenuity used in various scenes, the umbrella scare was minimally chilling and the long take following Velma throughout her house was well executed. But it's not enough to differentiate itself against every other generic horror film one could easily find on Netflix. The quality and effectiveness that mostly exists in this cinematic universe is not present at all! Predictable right from the bloody start. Velma's children make so many stupid choices that she should've just given them to La Lymphoma. Do not get me started on that doll sequence as the girl reaches out for it on their porch. There's plenty of choking. Eggs explode blood!? Lord, take me now!

Cardellini deserved better. Way better. It started off with an interesting approach on child abuse, but no. Should've known it would throw that out of the window. What should've been a decent mainstream horror turns out to be a supernatural disaster. "I'll See You in Roma" wept its last tear.