REVIEW : THE CURSE OF LA LlORONA

The curse of La Llorona is the latest in the conjuring universe. This is a spin-off of sorts very loosely connected to the other conjuring films and this one is about the folktale known as the weeping woman, she is an urban legend of sorts that tells of a woman who long ago drowned both of her children in a river and today she hunts other children that she can steal away, she attracts children by crying, lures them in and then kills them in some way I guess because she is a spirit demon.

As a folktale if you have ever done any research surrounding La Llorona there's actually a lot there thats really creepy and I was excited to see a film that hopefully delved into that and gave some backstory and made you feel like you were watching somethin that was more than just a series of scare scenes. Unfortunately, thats exactly what this film is the first I would say the first act was actually alright, the beginning was investing I was like okay thats not bad, I mean the title booms on the screen, I was like okay thats cool okay something's happening alright, this is kind of exciting and then you get introduced to the characters and you meet a family and you see she works as an agent for child endangerment and thats good, thats a good link for her and some of the first few scenes that build up this woman and her creepiness and what she can do were really effective its the second act really that becomes just a long series of scenes where you are building up to a jump scare.

They find effective ways to do that they are in a car the windows are being rolled down there is a girl with and umbrella and she moves the umbrella  around and you can see La Llorona in different places and they do this quite often and you can really feel like the writers just did not have anything to work with which is not true, there is so much to work with in that folktale, there is so much they could have done that they just ignored to focus on an average LA family in the 1970s like this should have been in Mexico, imagine how beautiful this movie would have looked if it was shot in Mexico. I mean this is a Mexican folk tale, why is it in boring we have seen it a thousand average times LA with some average family. It just doesnt make sense like it seems like they had gold there like they really could have just went for this awesome folktale with so much lower behind it and shot it in a really cool place that you dont usually see feature films in of this scare coming from a franchise universe, but they just shot it in LA and to me, thats just a big missed opportunity, I'd say one of the bigger pluses of the film though is the acting, I think Linda Cardellinin and Raymond Cruz are both really good  the kids are also excellent really good kid performances which this performances whic this film relies a lot on that, because this is a ghost that takes the kid and so the kids are gonna have a lot of screen time. 

I could sync your movie and they did a great job, the acting I would say is probably the best part of the film, the cinematography is fine, it feels very standard, its just there is many scenes that look exactly like a James Wan movie but without the innovation, this is a first-time director for a feature and it definitely feels like he is attempting to make this film fit into the universe without making it feels like its of its own, there is something Im noticing about the conjuring universe films and it is troubling just about every single one thats is not a James Wan conjuring movie safe for literally just Annabel creation, they all feel very inconsequential, its almost like they are told to not be better than the conjuring because they all feel like they are not trying to be better than the conjuring, I cant imagine the studio is actually enforcing that, that would be really detrimental to your franchise but thats what these films are starting to feel like the majority of this universes films that are not directed by James Wan, just feel like cash grabs, because the entire third act of this movie is set basically in her house I wont give you away any spoilers but its really clear that they are doing their best to make these movies on the cheap which make sense.

You make horror on the cheap, you make a good bang for you buck thats just how it goes. I understand how that works is something that I will eventually probably try to do myself, so Im not talking down to them for that Im just saying that, it feels like they are operating within a boundary with the way they are writing this like if they shot it in Mexico, it would absolutely be a better film. I mean I have no doubt to be a better film but it'd also be a more expensive film, probably because you'd have to go across country and you'd have to , you know, lug all the gear out there instead of just shooting a nice LA, a block away from the studio where you are gonna edit it and it just feels like they are not trying hard enough to make the best film, they could and they are just making very smart business choices which is this still the first 25 minutes were okay, and I was actually invested and I felt like I was excited about what could happen next but then the tropes started to pile in, she visits a priest, a priest knows about the history and explains the history. Okay... we hve seen this a thousand times before she goes back home, everyone in the house starts to see this thing but nobody wants to talk about it and nobody wants to admit that its real despite the fact, that if they just got together and talked about it maybe they could start making a plan and things could get interesting, but no we want to have more jump-scare scenes then she goes back to the priest again and gets more exposition and you are just like okay at this point you have lost me it was a cool setup its a cool antagonist but they just didnt do anything with it, gonna give the curse of La Llorona a d-plus for me this was about on the same level as the nun not very scary just some sequences billed to noises and you just dont really feel invested in the story thats the most important part and I wasnt unfortunately I wanted to though I wanted to and this could have been a lot better. 

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