SXSW 2019 Review: THE CURSE OF LA LLORONA: No Soul To This Tale

Behold, the curse of diminishing returns. Just like The Nun, The Curse of La Llorona feels like a horror film that’s out to hold our attention until the main attraction, The Conjuring 3, comes out. That’s because, despite director Michael Chaves’ best efforts, the film is just not original enough to stand on its own.

The Curse of La Llorona is based on a real Latin American folktale, about a woman who drowned her children, and now spends an eternity weeping for them as a ghost. Set in the 1970s, the film revolves around social worker Anna (Linda Cardellini) and her two kids, who get caught up in the spirit’s wrath.

La Llorona? The Woman in Black? Bathsheba? Valak?

There are two big mistakes that prevent The Curse of La Llorona from fully realizing its premise. The first is the film makes little effort to distinguish its titular spirit from any other spirit.

If the script didn’t give you a backstory, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between La Llorona and any other female ghost in recent horror films. At the end of the day, the film executes a typical boo-haunted-house narrative, where it’s all about a vengeful spirit that’s out to kill children. How is that different from Bathsheba from The Conjuring? Or the old woman in black from Insidious? How about Valak from The Conjuring 2 and The Nun?

There’s a saying that goes something like this: “Don’t review the movie they didn’t make. Review the movie they made.”

Throughout my experience of watching The Curse of La Llorona, I could not stop thinking about the movie they didn’t make. When you can replace La Llorona herself with any other spirit, and your film can still work, you know you’ve done a disservice to the original folktale. Why not deconstruct La Llorona herself and dive into the concepts of child abandonment/murder? Why not have Anna be Latin American and the time setting be present day, so the story can potentially explore the legacy, superstitions, and culture behind folktales? Which brings me to the second biggest mistake in the film…

A Protagonist Problem that Trickles Down to a Story Problem

I suspect that this film’s target audience is going to consist of Latin Americans who grew up with the folktale, which is why it makes little to no sense to me why Anna herself isn’t Latin American. The film could’ve established Anna as someone who grew up hearing stories of the Weeping Woman, but refused to acknowledge they’re real. Maybe even include some past trauma to further solidify that plot point. Instead, what we get is a woman who has never heard of the name “La Llorona” until she and her kids become stalked by the spirit.

Cardellini does the best she can with the material she’s given. She certainly captures the fear and concern a mother would have for her children. The problem is Cardellini can only go so far with that character archetype, and the problem escalates when the film is making such a big deal that its source of evil is a legendary spirit like La Llorona. This is like if the Conjuring films decided to have the victimized families be the main characters, and then the rest of the attention is spent on Bathsheba and Valak.

Revisit James Wan’s Conjuring films and you will remember that a big part of why they work effectively is they are first and foremost about the Warrens (Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson). When your protagonist is knowledgeable in the ways of identifying and combating evil spirits, your film has much more room to play with, in terms of characterization and plot. For The Curse of La Llorona, the plot really doesn’t get interesting until we get to the climax, where Anna consults a curandero (Raymond Cruz) to help vanquish the evil. Yes, the climax of La Llorona is the plot setup and rising action of the Conjuring films. See the problem, now?

As a result, The Curse of La Llorona feels repetitive because we have no one compelling to hold onto and make progress with. Anna and her kids can’t hold the film forever, especially when the script forces the children to make really bad decisions to keep the runtime going. I almost lost my mind when the daughter made a certain decision during the climax, which can rival the son in the first Purge for stupidest decision ever made by a child. I must’ve flipped an invisible table.

Jump Scares! Clichés! YAY!

Remember that scene in Anchorman where Steve Carell’s character yells, “LOUD NOISES”? This movie lives by that.

Queue a creaking door. Have a character investigate that sound. For extra points, make sure the character does not turn any of the lights on. Then, at the right time, put in a scary image and a sound that’s loud enough to make anybody jump. To quote my father, the movie is “the equivalent of having someone sit next to you and occasionally poke at you with a needle.”

That’s not to say all good horror movies avoid this formula. The difference is good horror movies have more components going on. They’re generally not repetitive in their setpieces. They do more than just scare us –they advance a plot point or make us learn a bit more about a character. The Curse of La Llorona is a film that shows little interest in progressing a story. It’s just a film satisfied with finding different ways to jumpscare us. As a result, when you zoom out and think about this film on paper, barely anything happens because the story is so barebone.

The Curse of La Llorona: Just No Substance and No Soul

The Curse of La Llorona doesn’t work because it barely scratches the surface of its fascinating concept. It’s a horror film that would’ve worked better as a twenty minute short film, because at a runtime of 93 minutes, the story had very little to say. It’s unfortunate because Linda Cardellini turned in a great performance, and Michael Chaves demonstrated throughout the film that he took notes on how to handle creepy camerawork, lighting, and set design. Raymond Cruz was likable for the amount of screen time he had, so much so that I suspect New Line Cinema will produce a spin-off film that stars his character.

But the film lacks a compelling protagonist. Most of all, it lacks a soul. There’s not enough emotional weight or thematic substance in the writing to make the film recommendable. It’s also not bonkers enough to be an entertaining bad movie, which is an argument that can be made for The Nun. Essentially, at the end of the day, it all feels like an exercise to see how many people will pay money to see the film just because they recognize the folktale of the Weeping Woman.

For me, this film may be a miss, but for Chaves, this is just a stepping stone in his career. I just hope he gets a smaller budget and a simpler premise for his next passion project, so he can go back to storytelling basics. Oh wait, he’s directing The Conjuring 3, isn’t he? I pray that Chaves will have a better script to work with.

Did you see The Curse of La Llorona at SXSW? What did you think of the film? Share below!

The Curse of La Llorona premiered at SXSW on March 15, 2019. It will be released in theaters in the US on April 19, 2019. For international release dates, click here.