I love the fact that most of my family shares my enthusiasm for horror movies. There’s no better way to spend time together than watching a good horror movie together, or even better, a bad one. So last week, we saw The Curse of La Llorona.
The Curse of La Llorona, the 2019 venture, directed by Michael Chaves is ‘oh so last decade’. Literally. It was recommended by someone who scares easy, so well, we didn’t have high expectations.
The film starts off with the picture of a happy family, in a far off land in Mexico, some time in the 17th century. But soon, we see the mother, heartlessly drowning two of her young sons heartlessly to their deaths. It’s a pretty good start, the makers have a solid back story of an urban legend, that of a repenting mother, looking for her dead sons, and killing innocent children when she realizes they are not her kids.
But the makers of La Llorona almost completely waste the explosive potential of this movie. It could have been a spine-chilling film that haunts you in the night. Unfortunately, they rely on the usual jump scares and sound effects and evoke minimal scares. I can’t remember one scene where I was startled and even the tamest of horror films have their moments, but not this one. At least, not for me.
One thing that didn’t work at all for this film was the decision of the makers to show the face of the ghost La Llorona in the first few minutes. And what was even worse was that they gave her really garish make-up, she looked like she was the sister of the ghost from the film ‘The Nun’. Seriously. Bad choice.
I don’t understand why horror film makers think that the villain must look ugly as hell to scare people. You know what is even more scary? Pretty looking ghosts killing kids. There is a also a brief scene towards the end where they actually show what Llorona looked like. The viewers were already informed that she was ‘one of the most beautiful women’ of her time. But what we see is Ugly Betty before her makeover. I am not even kidding.
The Curse of La Llorona was worth my time because I love all kinds of horror movies, even the bad ones. But maybe you could skip it for your friday the 13th movie night.
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