While watching this movie I started to get hungry since I hadn't yet eaten dinner. And my thoughts about what I might eat after this movie were more interesting to me than the movie I was watching.
Set in 1970s Los Angeles, a social worker learns about the shocking death of 2 young boys she's helped care for and starts learning of the centuries-old Mexican folktale of La Llorona, or the weeping woman. This angry ghost takes the form of a Mexican woman in a dirty white dress bent on luring children to a watery grave. She can appear in the quietest moments, break open locked doors, and grab children's arms leaving painful burn marks. There's far too many rules (and far too many twists that make no sense) hastily thrown together in this movie to explain where this ghost comes from, how she finds her victims, and how she can be defeated.
The Curse of La Llorona doesn't seem concerned about giving a compelling original story with well-developed characters. (Apparently, flickering candle light, cracking glass, and predictable jump scares are more important.) It functions more as an unnecessary piece in the horror franchise of The Conjuring movies that started in 2013. Grafting this movie into the universe of The Conjuringmovies was the only surprise The Curse of La Llorona offered. With other spin-off films like Annabelle (2014, the old-fashioned doll with an angry grin), The Nun (2018, the spooky white-faced woman in a habit), and even more sequels in the works, isn't it time to let sleeping ghosts lie? I think it is.
