RECENT WATCHES: The Curse of La Llorona (2019)

It is possibly the most persistent piece of folklore in Latin American communities. Popularized by a 1849 sonnet by Mexican poet Manuel Carpio, there's evidence to suggest the myth might be as old as the 1500s, with pre-colonial roots in Aztec mythology. Either way, across countless regional variations, many elements remain consistent. She was often a mother of two children who was betrayed by an unfaithful husband. Like Medea, she drowned her babies as a form of revenge before becoming so grief-stricken that she took her own life. Now the spectre of this woman travels the world, always weeping like a Banshee and calling out for "mi mios." That is the legend of La Llorona, the Crying Woman. In most places, this is little more than a mere boogie-monster story, told to keep children from playing near bodies of water. Or to listen to their elders, as La Llorona is said to snatch any disobedient kid that reminds her of her lost offspring. However, reports of eerie cries persist. La Llorona is, in my opinion, a manifestation of an archetypal premise that has stretched around the globe. Whether it's Lamia of ancient Greece, Lilith of Hebrew myth, Baba Yaga of Slavic stories, or Kuchisake-onna of modern Japanese ghost tales, the idea of a monstrous woman who destroys life, instead of birthing it, seems to have a powerful resonance with our collective psyche. I want to write a book about this someday.

Whatever her origins are or what deeper meaning the story conveys, there's no doubt that La Llorona has become an icon of Latin-American culture. The story was initially told in cinema in 1933, in the first horror movie made in Mexico. It's been adapted many times since then, the wailing ghost truly establishing itself as the country's most prominent home-grown monster when she tangoed with Santo. The same year a critically acclaimed film loosely inspired by the legend came out of Guatemala, Warner Brothers and New Line Cinema would release “The Curse of La Llorona.” After being impressed by Michael Chaves' short, “The Maiden,” it became the first of three films from the director that James Wan produced. “The Curse of La Llorona” was not advertised as part of “The Conjuring” universe and Chaves insists it isn't an official entry in the series. I'm not sure how this is true, when it features Tony Amendola reprising the role of Father Perez from “Annabelle” and gives the demonic doll a cameo. Either way, Chaves has gone on to work exclusively in this franchise since, suggesting “The Curse of La Llorona” was always meant as a test run for the guy.

The first hint "The Curse of La Llorona" is part of the "Conjuring"-verse is that it is set in 1973 for no other discernable reason. Child protective services worker Anna – widowed mother of two kids herself, Chris and Samantha – investigates a woman named Patricia Alvarez. Her two sons have not been at school and Anna finds them locked in a closet with burns on their arms. The kids are taken away from Alvarez, much to her protesting. That night, the two boys are mysteriously drowned. Anna is called to the scene, forced to drag her own kids along. Patricia is suspected of the murders but she blames Anna. That she was protecting her boys from La Llorona, the Crying Woman of Spanish folklore. Anna doesn't believe any of that at first... Until Chris and Sam start to see a weeping spectre in a white gown, calling out to them and beckoning them towards the pool in the backyard. Anna's children are now marked by the curse of La Llorona. She seeks out the help of Rafael Olvera, a former Catholic priest and current shaman to stop the vengeful spirit and save her children. 

One can see why Michael Chaves was recruited into the "Conjuring" universe. "The Curse of La Llorona" shows a similar sort of classy, glossy ghost movie atmosphere that focuses on establishing a sense of place. The best thing about the film is the specificity of its 1970s LA setting. Anna seems to do okay for herself but there's still a sense of her struggling to get by, which she sees far worse examples of at work. Setting the film in a pre-digital era makes it feel more remote, its child characters more vulnerable. Chaves, cinematographer Michael Burgess, and the production designers do a good job of creating lived-in locations that look suitably foreboding. During its best moments, "The Curse of La Llorona" seems to be building towards an atmosphere of creepy dread, like in the first and superior "The Conjuring." A sequence of Patricia's sons wondering a hospital at night or La Llorona running her hands into Sam's hair as she takes a bath are actually almost effectively eerie, as far as the standards of these movies go. 

Unfortunately, every time "The Curse of La Llorona" starts to build up any creepy ambiance at all, the film quickly throws it all away in favor of the loudest jump-scare it can assault the viewer with. Whenever an inkling of suspense or tension starts, it inevitably crashes into a loud shriek. Often literally, as the film is extremely fond of shoving the screaming, ghostly face of its titular antagonist right at us, her corpse-like visage enhanced with some tacky CGI. By its last act, "The Curse" has become an endless cacophony of screams, loud musical stings from Joseph Bishara's thundering score, and spectral leaps at the viewer. It shows a serious lack of balance. Otherwise decent moments, like one of the kids getting dragged backwards through the house or furniture moving in a crowded attic by itself, are rendered totally inert by the constant need to screech at us. The result proves more tedious than scary, the endless bludgeoning of loudness that merely numbs us to whatever effect these individual beats might have had otherwise. 

"The Curse of La Llorona" earned an R-rating without being especially gory or salacious almost certainly because there are so many dead kids in the movie. The opening flashback to 1673, a totally unnecessary scene meant to provide an origin for the wailing ghost, doesn't waste much time before showing us some primary school age youngsters being drowned. Making Anna a child welfare worker causes the theme of parental abuse to be more than an abstract concept. When Anna sees the Alvarez boys imprisoned and with burns, it's literally her job to remove kids from situations like that. However, once her kids are marked by the ghost, Anna suddenly finds herself going through the same dilemma Patricia went through. To the point that CPS gets called on her. The fear of a parent becoming that thing that most disgusts her might've been a powerful theme. However, there's never any ambiguity in the film about the reality of the ghost, the audience knowing that all of Anna's actions are totally justified. What she's doing isn't potential abuse or a meaningful parallel to the other branches of the story. This makes "The Curse of La Llorona" merely a ghost story and not a film about anything deeper, like child abuse or the fear of fucking up your kid that every parent has. 

Perhaps a reason why legends like La Llorona and all the descendants of Lilith have been such a common idea throughout human history is because it reinforces patriarchal gender roles. A woman is a mother, the stories seem to say. To destroy the children she births turns her into a monster that kills all children, everywhere. Least we forget that she committed double infanticide in the first place to spite an unfaithful husband, who the stories never mention much. Societal standards of the time dictate that it's the woman's fault and she deserves the distinction of monsterhood. Not that "The Curse of La Llorona" grapples with any of these ideas. In fact, it's not an especially good representation of the myth it claims to be about. This Weeping Woman seems to do a whole more screaming than crying. She also burns her victims' skin, despite being repeatedly associated with the watery elements. Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis' script instead treat La Llorona like a generic evil ghost. They invent an underwhelming mythology around the ghost, giving her a weakness to the seeds and wood of the "fire tree" that grew by the river she drowned her kids in. Feels like that should've cropped up earlier at some point in the five hundred years the ghost has been doing this shit, ya know? It turns a specific, culturally resonant piece of folklore into a gentrified movie monster that can be vanquished. 

The most cynical part of me suspects that Warner Brothers greenlit "The Curse of La Llorona" to appeal to the growing Latino/Spanish speaking marketplace, among which horror is a historically popular genre. At the same time, I wonder if risk adverse execs feared an actual Latina lead would be too alienating to the pastier parts of Americans. By which I mean, why does a film about Mexican-American folklore star Linda Cardellini? Cardellini isn't given much to do besides scream and panic, especially as the film goes on, but is still far more charming than the material demanded. She has strong chemistry with the actors playing her kids and Raymond Cruz as Rafael, who brings some dry sarcasm to the part. The movie probably should have been about Patricia Alvarez, played by Patricia Velásquez, instead. Making the lead a white woman threatened by a scary brown legend, who needs a culturally foreign mystic to save her, causes unfortunate racist and exotic implications. Not that weirdly retrograde subtext is out of the ordinary for "The Conjuring" universe. At least the film is not as blatant in being Vatican propaganda as "Annabelle" or "The Nun," though it's still steeped in the idea that Catholic priests are the protector of children, instead of anything else involving children. 

In other words, "The Curse of La Llorona" is not a good movie and is especially not a good horror movie. When I saw it in theaters – Thanks AMC A-List! – I hated it. I went so far as to list it as the 2019 release I enjoyed the least. Perhaps watching "The Conjuring" series in order has made me grow fonder, or at least less annoyed, by this very loud kind of studio spook show. Maybe on second viewing, when you go in knowing you're getting a non-stop jump scare-fest that thoroughly wastes all the potential it has, you can focus more on the parts you don't hate as much. Expectations and all. Perhaps I simply think Linda Cardellini is cute. Either way, "The Curse of La Llorona" pissed me off less on this viewing. It is disposable at best, mildly racist at worst, and is very lame in every way that matters. But I do like the leads and the seventies setting, which counts for something, I suppose. There are better – and much worse – movies about the legendary Crying Woman out there. [4/10]