‘Father Perez said you turned your back on the church...’
Due to my hubris and mathematical ineptitude, I ended up having to watch this film on my phone in a hotel room in London whilst my wife slept beside me. An odd experience. Alas, this was the only way I could fulfil my brief of watching 31 horror films in 31 days. I’m nothing if not committed. And stupid.
The Conjuring franchise is a horror behemoth in terms of box office success and audience appreciation. The fact I’ve never really been able to embrace it, give or take the occasional film, is a source of great sadness for me. I want to love these movies… but they’re just all the goddamn same. Which brings us to…
La Llorona. The story goes that La Llorona (Marisol Ramirez) drowned her two children in a jealous rage after discovering her husband in bed with a younger woman. From this moment on, Llorona is cursed to wander the earth and attempt to drown more children. Her onset is preceded by the sound of weeping and the appearance of the damned spirit in mirrors and such. This sounds awfully similar to The Nun, doesn’t it? And yes. Yes it is. Attempting to fend off La Llorona’s evil advances are loving mother Anna (Linda Cardellini), local priest Father Perez (Tony Amendola), last scene fighting off an evil doll in one of the Annabelle movies and Rafael (Raymond Cruz), a local mystic and lapsed priest who spends a lot of time rubbing eggs around the place for reasons that aren’t really clear.
So far, so Conjuring. And like all the films in this franchise, it suffers from the same problems as every Conjuring movie. The jump scares are both telegraphed and overused, the plot is derivative and predictable (although the actual legend of La Llorona is suitably creepy) and the whole thing feels like a cynical money grab relying on formulaic, tried-and-tested crowd pleasing tactics rather than actual cinematic flair. Whilst there are moments of visual ingenuity from time to time, these are mostly wasted. Cardellini does the best with what she is given and Cruz provides some subtle comic relief in keeping with the tone of the movie, but The Curse of La Llorona feels more like a missed opportunity than anything else.
And so, my old nemesis The Conjuring universe has failed me again. Maybe next time.