The Curse of La Llorona

Social worker Anna (Linda Cardellini) finds herself and her two children, Chris and Samantha (Roman Christou and Jaynee-Lynne Kinchen) in the crosshairs of an old folkloric curse, that of La Llorona (Marisol Ramirez). As legend has it, stricken with grief from her husband’s infidelity, La Llorona killed her entire family including her two young sons and now walks the earth as a damned soul in search of new children to replace her own. Thwarting the evil will not be easy, in fact, that will take the help of former priest Rafael (Raymond Cruz), is it already too late? Directed by Michael Chaves and Written by Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis and produced by James Wan, this shifting of focus in the “Conjuring Universe” to other unexplored evils makes for an interesting premise and setup but ultimately falls flat in delivery past Act II, especially once the monster is out of the box and logical decisions gravitate towards stupidity. There’s also one eyebrow raised at the lukewarm concept of the Conjuring Universe, while not an idea D.O.A., there’s a question of necessity, and or the thought it might actually weaken the overall product potential or reception, time will tell. On the positive, the ensemble gives a strong effort to keep the ship afloat despite the overall thin source material, and, wrapping up in a merciful 93 minutes, you could do worse. Rated R, despite lack of blood, nudity or strong language, Wan Lite, this is The Curse of La Llorona.