THE CURSE OF LA LLORONA / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: MICHAEL CHAVES / SCREENPLAY: MIKKI DAUGHTRY, TOBIAS IACONIS / STARRING: LINDA CARDELLINI, RAYMOND CRUZ, MARISOL RAMIREZ, ROMAN CHRISTOU, JAYNEE-LYNNE KINCHEN / RELEASE DATE: 9TH SEPTEMBER
This has been a great year to be a horror fan. Filmmakers Ari Aster and Jordan Peele enjoyed acclaim for their directorial follow-ups, IT: Chapter Two is coming, Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark over-performed at the box office, Alexandre Aja’s Crawl gave a shot of adrenaline to the late summer lag. Hell, even remakes like Child’s Play and Pet Sematary attained favourable responses. In fact, if you take all this into account, the competition in horror is red hot at the moment and if anything harms – undoubtedly 2019’s most mispronounced movie – The Curse of La Llorona, it’s probably that.
Director Michael Chaves’ addition to the Conjuring Universe (a fact very bizarrely under-played in the marketing) seeks to bring the legendary Mexican folktale to the big screen and the results are enjoyable if not exactly original.
Set in 1973, child social worker Anna Tate-Garcia (Linda Cardellini) investigates the disappearance of a client’s two kids, only to find a great darkness unleashed upon her own family in the shape of La Llorona (Marisol Ramirez), a child-stalking entity fuelled by rage and grief.
The Curse of La Llorona bares far more in common with 2014’s Annabelle and 2018’s The Nun, rather than some of the series’ greater instalment’s (including this summer’s Annabelle Comes Home) and while the film is concise and filled with some multiplex-friendly shakes, bumps and chills, you have seen this play out before. Mike Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis’ screenplay, like Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, is en-livened by its embrace of Mexican lore and culture. Like that film, La Llorona may borrow heavily from the rulebook but will offer enough jolts and mythology to satisfy hardcore enthusiasts of this chilling legend, if perhaps struggling more with winning over veteran fans of the genre.
The performances are strong, with the impressive child stars keeping up with Cardellini and Mummy star Patricia Velásquez, and a dryly comic turn by Raymond Cruz as unorthodox former priest Rafael is most welcome. Meanwhile, Joseph Bishara’s score hits the right notes and some of the practical work in bring La Llorona to life (as detailed in short but fun extra featurette “The Making of a Movie Monster”) is great. As is the level of respect the film has for its source material and the heritage that inspired it (highlighted further by the blu-ray disc’s “The Myth of La Llorona and “Behind the Curse”).
Opening with an immediate effect and making a brief link to the universe it is housed within (albeit the link is far less impactful than other instalments), The Curse of La Llorona does not stand up there with very best of the year’s horror output but is a fun enough offering for fans of the lore and the Conjuring-verse.
The aforementioned featurettes serves as some nice extras, alongside a few storyboards and a selection of deleted scenes, that round out an enjoyable enough package.
