★★
Ignoring the eerie warning of a troubled mother suspected of child endangerment, a social worker and her own small kids are soon drawn into a frightening supernatural realm.
Classification: 15
While director Michael Chaves delivers on tension and scares, that is all that this ghost story can deliver on. With a weak script that doesn’t create any interesting story beats or characters, The Curse of La Llorona moves from one eerie set piece to another with no real development and hopes you’re scared enough by the end not to notice.
Linda Cardellini stars as Anna, a mother and social worker who becomes entangled in the path of the fabled La Llornoa or translated as Weeping Woman. There is potential in a tragic character arc for her but soon dissipates as the film moves away from character drama to full blown ghost story. Cardellini is given very little to work with as the film has her do her best scream queen, her role eventually regulated to just yelling every time La Llorona tries to come for her children. Cardellini sells it and creates a character easy to emphasise with but a lot of story potential for her just seems unrealised and unresolved.
Chaves’s strengths in this film come with his building of dread and tension through the films many sequences of La Llorona stalking children. These sequences almost always end in a jump scare with a loud music cue, some of those work, others are expected and soon become tedious. While these jump scares are likely deliver the biggest screams in the cinema, the most chilling parts are when the film’s horror works subtly and continuously builds the terror. Stand out moments involving a car window slowly being rolled down in the night and another concerning what can be seen through a translucent umbrella.
The Curse of La Llorona cinematography and production design help create the disturbing atmosphere in the film. Cinematographer Michael Burgess creates moments of unease just from framing of the shots and lighting of locations. The film may have no form of satisfying narrative payoffs but the film does have a great sense of unease in its gothic and demonic imagery. It is disappointing that at time it feels the script never had any effort or just forgot to have a sense of conclusions for the characters. This focus on horror and jump scares really makes the climax of the film frustrating and leaves one wondering what was the point of the events proceeding it.
While there are highlights of genuine horror, The Curse of La Llorona has too many issues in its script holding it down and makes it nothing more than just a series of scares and screams. Cardellini is an enjoyable lead and Raymond Cruz as the unorthodox exorcist makes for a peculiar character but without any real sense of closure for the films story, it is hard to get invested in their plight. Director Michael Chaves has a talent in creating genuine terror I just hope is next endeavour into the genre has a stronger foundation in character and story than just fright.
Director: Michael Chaves
Cast: Linda Cardellini, Raymond Cruz, Patricia Velásquez
Release Date: May 3rd 2019
Trailer:
Written review copyright ©CoreyBullochReviews
Images and Synopsis from the Internet Movie Database
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