313. The Curse of La Llorona; movie review

THE CURSE OF LA LLORONA
Cert 15
93 mins
BBFC advice: Contains strong horror, sustained threat

Groan. Another house in which children are dragged around by an evil ghost.
I have read a brief report which asks whether the makers of The Curse of La Llorona had intended it to be a spoof and yet it didn't prompt a single laugh.
However, I do have to confess that it did make me jump four times - thanks to sudden screen appearances combined with music or ear-splitting noise.
Michael Chaves' movie is set in the early 1970s in Los Angeles where a recently widowed social worker (Linda Cardellini) is struggling to cope with bringing up two children.
She is overworked and cynical so when she calls at the home of a client (Patricia Velasquez) and finds her sons locked in a cupboard, she believes it is much more likely a sign of abuse than their mother protecting them from evil.
Of course, this being a ghostly horror, she is wrong and hell is unleashed on her and her family as a consequence.
So, when darkness descends, the weeping woman cries and sets about trying to grab her offspring to replace those she lost hundreds of years ago.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I know, you have heard it all before. Indeed, you could have predicted the woman's grey complexion and her angry eyes.
And people are thrown across the room, into swimming pools and myriad other places by the warped and ghostly fiend.
It all feels like a path which has been trodden at least 100 times before.
I guess the teenagers on date night like this sort of thing. Otherwise, why is it still given air time?

Reasons to watch: Certainly makes the audience jump
Reasons to avoid: Goes down a well-travelled path

Laughs: none
Jumps: four
Vomit: none
Nudity: none
Overall rating: 4/10

Did you know? While the Mexican version is the most common telling of the horror tale, it goes back further - to ancient Greece. The myth tells the story of how Hera when she discovered Zeus' affair with Lamia, forces the demigoddess to eat her own children. Lamia then wanders the Earth devouring children she catches.

Final word. Michael Chaves: "We did have some creepy supernatural occurrences. Half the crew actually does believe the house that we shot in was haunted, and there might have been something to that.” LA Times

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