The Curse of La Llorona

The latest entry within the almost uniformly mediocre Conjuring franchise, The Curse of La Llorona follows single mother Anna Tate-Garcia (Linda Cardellini) as she attempts to keep her two children safe from a vicious, centuries-old supernatural being. There’s little doubt that The Curse of La Llorona initially benefits from first-time filmmaker Michael Chaves’ agreeably stylish take on Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis’ paint-by-numbers screenplay, as the movie, though consistently well made and well acted (Cardellini is almost shockingly good here), suffers from an increasingly generic sensibility that grows more and more difficult to stomach (or forgive) as time progresses – with this vibe certainly perpetuated by an emphasis on the various ingredients one has come to associate with movies of this ilk (eg an exceedingly deliberate pace, eye-rolling jump scares, etc). The complete lack of surprises ensures that the viewer is consistently unable to embrace the central characters’ perilous plight (and there’s certainly never a point at which one is actually concerned for the kids’ fate), while Daughtry and Iaconis’ aggressively approach paves the way for a second half rife with nonsensical, laughable occurrences (ie the spooky antagonistic seems content to just frighten the heroes over and over). The overblown climax cements The Curse of La Llorona‘s place as an especially ineffective modern ghost story, and it’s ultimately impossible not to wonder just which demographic the picture’s been geared towards (ie younger viewers will most likely find the whole thing too scary, while adults will grow tired of the movie’s endless sequences wherein characters investigate creepy noises within a dimly-lit house).

*1/2 out of ****