Fear factor fades fast
THE CURSE OF LA LLORONA
Director: Michael Chaves
Cast: Linda Cardellini, Patricia Velasquez, Raymond Cruz
Running Time: 93 min
Classification: 13 H V
Rating: ★★✬✬✬
INTRODUCING The Curse of La Llorona, Warner Bros and director Michael Chaves offered a bit of showmanship that director William Castle might’ve appreciated.
For a film derived from a Latin American folk tale, they brought the owner of a Los Angeles religious goods store onstage, performing rituals he said would ward off evil spirits and prevent the “crying woman” of the title from following viewers home.
The traditonal healer must’ve been good at his job, because at least one viewer was thoroughly protected from fear. The Curse of La Llorona is a ho-hum horror flick that seems unlikely to join producer James Wan’s earlier projects into thriller-franchise Valhalla.
After a quick scene establishing its version of the old tale – in 17th century Mexico, we see a jealous wife drowning her two children to punish a cheating husband – the film leaps to 1973 Los Angeles, a period setting that makes sense if (sigh) the hopeful film-makers intend it to be the backstory for Curse sequels.
Here, a recent widow named Anna (Linda Cardellini) works for Child Protective Services and must rescue two young boys from their mother, Patricia Alvarez (Patricia Velasquez), who has locked them in a closet in a boarded-up flat full of candles. Anna puts the boys in a city facility for the evening, promising them they’re safe.
They’re dead before dawn, and Alvarez, who has been ranting about supernatural threats to their lives, holds Anna accountable.
Conveniently, Anna has two children around the same age (Sam and Chris, played by Jaynee-Lynne Kinchen and Roman Christou), and La Llorona, or the Crying Woman, who was “consumed by guilt” when she killed her boys, is “condemned to roam the Earth searching for children to take their place”.
Maybe Alvarez can bring back her sons if she points the ghost towards Anna’s kids. The ghost – a yellow-eyed creep weeping icky black tears and wearing a wedding dress – starts haunting Sam and Chris, moving through their night-time environs in cheap jump-scares. The film relies so heavily on the “Boo!” moments that, midway through, the viewer protected by shamanistic magic stopped experiencing a reflexive twitch when they occurred.
It takes a while for Anna to accept the evil her children know is stalking them, but the film perks up when she does.
She goes to a priest, who sends her to a man who once wore the collar but practises folk medicine. He is Rafael Olvera (Raymond Cruz), and he brings the movie its two decent laughs.
Cruz (Tuco Salamanca on Breaking
Bad) has a dry appeal as the movie’s Latino exorcist; though Rafael’s preparations for spiritual warfare are just variations on what we’ve seen in a dozen better genre films, they briefly enliven the action and make us hope for something more exciting. What arrives is a spectre who obeys physical laws when it’s convenient for the story and doesn’t when it’s not. | Hollywood Reporter