The Curse of La Llorona (2019) Review

“Mis hijos”

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

If you thought spin-offs couldn’t be worse for The Conjuring franchise, look no further with 2019’s The Curse of La Llorona.


PLOT


The film takes place in 1973 and follows widowed caseworker Anna Tate-Garcia who lives in LA with her children Chris & Samantha. When checking on a client, Patricia Alvarez, she finds her sons Carlos & Tomas locked behind a door. When being taken away by the police, she instructs Anna to keep them in the closet to protect them, but she goes against this vague request and takes them to a child services shelter. As a result, they’d be murdered by a ghostly woman in a white dress. Their bodies would be found near a river and declared to have died from drowning. Anna is called to the scene and consequently takes her kids with her. There, Patricia is taken there as well by authorities and blames her for it, claiming she was trying to stop the malevolent force, La Llorona, which is Spanish for ‘Weeping Woman’. When Chris leaves the car out of curiosity, he encounters the demon but quickly flees by the time his mom returns to the car. This would be the beginning of their haunting because by the next day, it leaves burn marks on Sam as it did her brother the night before. After the boys were buried, Anna meets Father Perez who explains La Llorona was once a lovely woman who killed her sons out of jealousy to her husband’s infidelity, a story used as a folktale to this day. Chris is even found sleepwalking one night before the door lock is kicked down by the demon. When Anna interviews Patricia of what happened, she admits that out of hatred, she prayed for La Llorona take the former’s children in order to get her own back. It appears to be proven so when trying pushing Chris down the stairs. Due to a doctor seeing the burn marks, Anna is questioned for her parenting by her coworker Donna, but the suspicion is dropped when the kids defend their mom. La Llorona later tries to drown Sam, but to no avail thanks to her mom intervening in time. It then leaves a similar mark on their mom, who then reaches out to Father Perez for advice. Due to his experience with the Annabelle doll, he sets her up with priest turned shaman Rafael Olvera who sets up the house with items for protection. When the next night occurs, La Llorona does have more attempts in killing the children, but Rafael is remove her from the house by planting seeds at the front door, that originate from the fine tree where she did the deed. It would quickly be broken when Sam stupidly goes out to get her toy outside. When Anna intervenes this time, she is able to remove the necklace from her and the demon was forced to leave after Rafael charms the pool to become holy water. However, La Llorona is still able to put the girl in a trance, forcing Anna to put both kids in the closet until sunrise like Patricia did to hers. The latter would then show up with a gun still feeling hatred for what happened, shooting Rafael in the process. As she begs for her boys back, La Llorona targets Anna while isolating the kids to go to the attic. Patricia would then go back on her actions upon instant regret and leave after freeing Anna from the basement. Chris would protect himself and his sister with the necklace, reminding her of how it was a gift from one of her sons before Anna stabs her with Rafael’s cross also made of the Fire Tree, destroying the spirit for good. By sunrise, Rafael departs and the family thanks him for the help he provided. The film then ends with Anna having a glare at puddle of water beside the road before going back inside.


THOUGHTS


I try to not be full of hate with movies I don’t like, but when I find it so bad to get through, I have to be brutally honest to get the message across. I find it a miracle that Michael Chaves continued to direct for this franchise after this directorial debut because it almost feels like a copy paste of the narrative we got from Annabelle. La Llorona is a separate entity the Warrens never dealt with and although they don’t show up here, that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be canon to this franchise because there is no true value to come from it. If it truly was its own thing as in not having Father Perez mention Annabelle and if Tony Amendola had played a completely different character that just happened to be a priest, it would’ve been a little better. Moving on, it felt like the cast was so predictably written like the 2014 spin-off to where I don’t care enough, since this movie knows what it is and not even this goes in with its premise. Since Annabelle Creation didn't have a happy ending, they could've followed that path and chose not to. If you really want La Llorona to be a bigger menace than what we've seen the Warrens deal with and Marisol Ramirez succeeds in making the character frightening upon each jump scare, they should've given a reality check that not everyone is lucky to overcome loss unscathed. I got nothing against Linda Cardellini as Anna because she nails it in making her a courageous mom. Both Roman Christou & Jaynee-Lynne Kinchen do succeed in making a believable pair as Chris & respectively, but it's too predictable that they're survive this experience in order to get the message across that grief can be contagious when not confronting it, especially when you see the bait and switch Patricia Velasquez has to pull off as Alvarez. And you can argue Raymond Cruz fits into the mold when portraying Rafael as quite prickly and resourceful for a shaman, but it feels like the character is held back since he's not properly introduced until the third act after already seeing him in the second act. With all these factors being noted, it gets easier to point out the many things that don't make much sense storywise. For starters, Patricia could've told Anna to keep away from the door and try explaining herself without the need of attacking her with a hammer. Even if La Llorona is bound to show up, it's baffling that the kids don't even try to tell Anna who's after them and get their mom out of jail sooner. They waste time playing the pronoun game and not bother correcting the one person that can help. It then gets weird how there was a security guard checking on the kids and is already out of the hallway by the time the boys get killed. I refuse to believe the elevator was that quiet by the time he left. I don't even buy the fact their bodies were found overnight. If they were found in the river, there had to have been at least one camera to see they were taken. And if La Llorona was able to roll the car window down from inside, I don't see why it hesitated in taking Anna's kids sooner. And why just target kids? If she was jealous of an unfaithful husband, it'd make sense to target unfaithful husbands as well not that I want that to happen. There's also no good reason for her to pause in drowning Sam midway when already knowing Anna was downstairs. What's really out of character for Anna is that she doesn't even ask Sam how she fell, which is an ideal question for her to ask as a social worker, even if it's her own kids. It's even a surprise she didn't even try taking her kids to a motel because that would've helped her realize her family is haunted and not the house. And if Rafael is around, where is the implication Patricia contacted him for help? Him being part of the boys' funeral doesn't feel like enough evidence to say so. There's also a big continuity error where Sam appears farther from the front door by the time she's pulled away when in fact she was still quite close to it in the previous take before that happens. If you can ignore all this shit, then I respect your tolerance to be entertained. To wrap up, The Curse of La Llorona is the worst entry of the Conjuring franchise for not ever trying to be different when it had its chances. If you want horror movies that are truly scary, this one ain't gonna do it for you, the 2020 version will.