The Curse of La Llorona — My take on the movie with spoilers!

 

PLOT SUMMARY: Anna finds that her children have become targets of the legend of the La Llorona. 

  When someone hurts you, breaks your heart and your trust, sometimes, unknowingly, you utter a curse upon them. You want them to feel the same anguish as you did, to have their hearts broken the way yours did. At the time you are so overwhelmed with feelings of revenge, you don't consider anyone in your path. Even people you care about. 

La Llorona is a popular Mexican urban legend that was featured in various shows, movies and plays over the years. 

It is about a beautiful woman who lives in a village. One day, a handsome man rides through her village, sets his eyes on her and falls in love. She reciprocates his feelings and they marry and have two sons. Everything is going fine, until one day, she finds her husband in the arms of another woman. Consumed with anguish and jealousy, she drowns her two sons, thinking it was the ultimate revenge to take away those his husband cherished. It was when she found them floating in the river that realization set in. In her rage, she had killed those she cherished as well. 

Unable to live with her guilt, she drowns herself but is granted no heaven. She killed her sons and now the only way her soul would find peace is if she brought the souls of two kids with her to the gates. Cursed to wander the earth looking for the souls of two kids, her story has become a base for horror stories. She is, after all, looking for the souls of any two children. They could be yours...

There are also stories where La Llorona's presence is detected by the sounds of her weeping. If you hear her weep, beware. She is nearby and she will hurt you. 

The Curse of La Llorona is yet another adaptation of the story. However, unlike previous stories, she doesn't simply take you away. First, she will approach you, scream at your face, then grab your arm and leave a mark. Now, why doesn't she take away her victims instantly? 

Was it like the ring, where victims are given seven days to complete their bucket list before they are killed? La Llorona's intentions are unclear. She somehow wants to stalk her victims, scream at them, try to drown them, but be unsuccessful. Is she toying with the people or are her powers that weak? No one knows. 

THE CURSE OF LA LLORONA Movie Plot

As the movie opens, we see Anna, a worker at the child protection services centre. The year is 1973 and Anna is hesitantly put on the case of a woman whose kids have not been seen for a while. The reason her supervisor is hesitant is that Anna has just recently lost her cop husband. She appeals to him to let her stay on the case and goes to visit the woman who has her door chained. 

Reluctantly, she agrees to let Anna in who is disturbed by what she finds inside. She wanders into the rooms and finds a door with strange markings on them. She is about to open it when the woman attacks her. Anna is saved by a cop. She opens the door and finds the two boys huddled inside, terrified.

 She takes them to the hospital and consoles them by saying that they are safe. But the boys claim they are not. Anna finds burn markings on the youngest boy's arm and assumes he was hurt by his mother. That night, the boys are sleeping in the hospital when La Llorona makes an appearance. Anna is sleeping when she receives the call. She is taken to the river where she finds two small bodies wrapped. Shocked that she was unable to save the kids, she doesn't pay attention to her kids in the car. Naturally, her son wanders about when told explicitly not to get out. 

He finds the weeping woman and she follows him to the car. There is more screaming, more jumping around. In the meantime, the boys' mother blames Anna for the incident. She also gives a strange look to Anna's son who shivers. Anna takes her kids home, unaware of what her son experienced. The next day, the daughter encounters La Llorona near the pool and is almost pulled in. She saves herself but is branded by the vengeful ghost. 

More incidents occur, but Anna is unable to notice that her kids are terrified and have strange markings on their arms until she finds La Llorona right in her bedroom. Her supervisor sends Anna to meet with the mother again, and see if she could reveal how she killed her sons. Anna goes to meet the woman who reveals that she didn't pray to God after her sons died. Rather, she desperately pleaded with the soul of La Llorona to take Anna's children and return her own kids. 

Anna listens to this coolly. She doesn't want to scream at the woman or ask how she dared curse her children. Nope, she sits still through it all.

At home, she is visited by her supervisor who has come to check on the kids after Anna's son suffers a fall. Anna is hurt that she is being blamed for hurting her kids. Realizing the law cannot help protect her kids, she meets with the priest who claims he believes in the supernatural after coming across a possessed object himself. 

He references the Annabelle doll and it is then that we notice that Anna's daughter is obsessed with a raggedy doll, much like the real Annabelle doll. Now we get that the story belongs in the Conjuring universe. Of course, he pulls himself away from the case and recommends a man who was once a priest but walked away from religion. He seems to have knowledge of how to defeat the ghost. 

At first, he disagrees, but one word from the daughter and he relents. His idea to beat La Llorona? To use the family as bait. He sets up candles and lines of beans to protect the family. At least this is what he tells the frightened family. La Llorona makes an appearance and drags away the mother. Anna manages to tear away a necklace around the ghost's neck.

THE CURSE OF LA LLORONA Ending Explained with Spoilers! 

 La Llorona disappears briefly but sets up a trap for the daughter who is obsessed with her doll. Dragging the doll inside, she messes up the line of beans and is pulled outside. Anna finds her in the pool but she is put in a trance by La Llorona. Anna hides the kids in the closet. 

A knock in the door and it is the mother of the two kids who were drowned. She wants revenge and shoots at the priest. But once she sees La Llorona chasing the kids, changes her mind. The son uses the necklace to fend himself and La Llorona turns into a human for a little while. 

But the daughter accidentally pulls a cloth from the mirror. Disgusted by her human appearance, La Llorona freaks out and changes into her monstrous appearance. Anna comes to her kids' aid. The priest, still alive, passes a cross to her that belonged to a tree near the river where La Llorona drowned her kids. 

Anna stabs her in the chest and La Llorona is vanquished. The priest leaves and Anna turned around to see a puddle near her house. 

Is that a puddle of tears? A rain puddle? A melted La Llorona? No idea. Also, what happened to the psycho mother from before? Was she put back in custody? She did shoot someone after all. 

 The movie had a few worthwhile moments, but apart from that, it was mostly about La Llorona screaming in the dark and from hiding spaces. You'll jump but not necessarily be scared. It lacks the potential to be an actual tale of horror. 

The legend of La Llorona is spoken through the ages and does give you the jitters. However, the movie doesn't exaggerate the legend. 

You hear weeping but if you don't know the legend, you won't understand why it is scary. As one version of the tale explains, you hear weeping like it's come from a distance, and it means La Llorona is nearby. If you hear it like it's coming from nearby it means she's afar. There was so much the movie creators could have done with the tale rather than depend on jump scares and a screaming woman with a veil. The poster is scarier than the movie. 

 Scare scale: 2.5/5

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