The Curse of La Llorona

“Father Perez said you turned your back on the church.”

Filmology Rating: 1.5 out of 4

This is the latest film in the Conjuring Universe, which is still somehow a thing. A Mexian demon-lady wants to drown your children. This film's setting is in LA, right across the street from the studio.

Ever since James Wan became a successful filmmaker, there has been a problem with horror films. James Wan's films are fine, but people take the wrong things away from them and apply them to their own horror films. Similar to how some filmmakers took the wrong lessons from Spielberg (the spectacle) and made films with zero substance, no heart, and nothing but spectacle (Roland Emmerich, Michael Bay). We have seen an attempt at digging the horror genre out of its own grave recently. But the 'cash grab' horror film still exists today. This film is conveniently in a time slot that no other film would try for (one week before "Endgame"). This allowed it to dominate the Easter box office and get its money back in a week.

Overall, the film is fine. It's not as bad as "The Nun." The first half hour is actually not bad. There is decent build up around this La Llorona character with rumors about what she does. There is an attempt to build a family dynamic to give likability to the main characters, but the script abandons all of that for scene after scene of people slowly walking in a dark house to end in a jump scare.

It actually feels like the script was written around creative jump scares that the writers thought were clever. For some reason, the writers are the same two that wrote "Five Feet Apart?" But, obviously they were chosen because they were dirt cheap to hire.

This film would make a good drinking game. Every time there is a cliche horror scene, drink. Go to priest, drink. Jump scare, drink.

There is also no establishment of the "horror rules." When you have a complicated antagonist, there is usually an establishment of what that antagonist can and can't do. That way, during the climax, we know what is at stake and given an idea of how the antagonist will be defeated. This is called setup and payoff. But, none of that was given. Just a ghost in a white dress.

It was fine. It's just another jump scare film.

Rating: Skip It

-Nolan