The Curse of La Llorona (2019) – Film Review – “Ghost of A Genre”
Jinkies…
At the time of writing—April 24th, 2019—this movie’s made almost $56M, global box office; figure production and marketing combo costs…looking at around $38M and some change, net profit. That’s…pretty decent, for an R-rated horror film actually swinging for a demographic target. If the studio had aimed for a PG-13 rating, they could’ve widened that broad net to the teenie crowd.
But, I digress…
With or without the widest audience possible, The Curse of La Llorona—funnily enough, not the only movie slated for a 2019 release with such a title—is still pretty average. Forgettable, I’d say, at best.
This is the first “big name” production I’ve seen of this popular Latin-American folktale. Scroll IMDb under “La Llorona”, and several B-movie titles will pop up (underneath this one, and the suspiciously-titled doppelgänger piece, complete with unapologetically-similar poster artwork). In the past, the sub-indie budgets have done well in keeping the productions grounded and aware of limitations, forcing the filmmakers to work well with what they have. Here—and on a criminally-small allowance for something that’s supposed to inhabit the same realm as the popularConjuring films—the estimated $9M budget is also put to work, but in different ways; whereas, in the past, the acting was so-so, some top-tier talent was employed in this newest iteration of the legend. Honestly, that’s what saved it, for me—what stopped the rating from dropping any lower than it did.
It’s laughable, at points; me and the one other guy in the theatre were predicting (correctly, mind) what was to come next, and either erupting in gallant guffaws, or audible sighs at the sheer stupidity of the characters’ actions. Best part was when a certain character messed up a warding spell and got—literally—yeeted through the air and out the door by this specter. I could barely breathe! Quite frankly, it’s a movie made of moments, loosely strung together by a “story”. Jeremy Jahns phrased that perfectly, in his YouTube recap of the movie. The ghost suffers from the unfortunate “Pennywise Syndrome”—all spice, no flavor. Scaring her victims senseless instead of picking them off…like every otherhapless soul she comes across in the movie. What’s modern horror without those juicy, juicy jump-scares, though!
As I said, it’s the performances that saved this movie, for me. Linda Cardellini (Velma in the live-action Scooby-Doo movies of old) is expressive in her portrayal of widowed mother, Anna, and doesn’t hold back or phone it in—a symptom, all-too-often, of indie horror. The kids—literally the main focal point of the piece—are great, as well. They make for excellent stakes…or steaks; the Weeping Woman may just have been hankerin’ for kiddy-flesh. Raymond Cruz (TNT’s The Closer, Alien: Resurrection) has got to be my favorite, hands-down, with how much raw, terrific grit and grizzle he brings to his ex-Catholic exorcist role…although, not without his own fears and preclusions, surrounding the deadly myth. They all, together, make the third act manageable, the best part, because it’s all about their struggle against something above and beyond them, and the family dynamic.
The filmmakers also knew how to build tension and atmosphere. Though drab, often colorless, and with a jump-scare (or two, in quick succession) awaiting us at the end of a building few seconds, it made for a gripping theatre experience. On the flipside, half the movie is bathed in indecipherable shadow. I also kept forgetting it was supposed to be set in the 1970s and in Los Angeles, though it could’ve very well been Anytown, USA; place-setting must not have been the young filmmakers’ fortés in school. For all the good it would’ve done the movie, the setting should’ve actually been Mexico; this all felt like cultural appropriation of a ghost story—like if the Spring-Heeled Jack urban legend or whatever found its way into a J-Horror flick.
The movie also struggles with tone; is it a cop drama? family drama? fan-fiction?
Yes, a second-half cameo—f*ck that cameo, by the way…—feels shoehorned-in and wholly-unnecessary. If the poster is anything to go by, I shouldn’t have expected it to be subtle or a total mind-flip…but, if you’re going to tease a more interesting premise, then give me that premise, instead! The ending is cool, and I can see where a choice may have been made to sub out an alternate ending, and save the original for the home video release. I have one in mind that—no spoilers—I would have preferred, an atypical ending to a movie of this type.
All-in-all, the creature(?) effects are solid, mostly-practical in their execution, even if the exact limits of this thing’s abilities and powers aren’t so clearly-defined. The cultural significance of the myth is a little lost in translation, but I’ve learned to expect little else from this genre of filmmaking.
The Curse of My Sharona gets a ***/** Risk Assessment rating. I’ve typed a lot more than I wanted to about this one—a lot more than it deserves, certainly.
I really want to see The Nun now, though…
