The Curse of La Llorona is a film built on a legend that should scare you. It is not a film that delivers on that promise. Directed by Michael Chaves from a script by Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis, the movie spends its runtime chasing a supernatural terror that never quite arrives, leaving behind a hollow dread that feels less like fear and more like a bad idea left too long on the page.
Set in 1973 Los Angeles, the film centers on Anna Tate-Garcia, played by Linda Cardellini, a caseworker investigating the disappearance of Patricia Alvarez’s two children. Patricia, played by Patricia Velásquez, is a mother whose sons, Carlos and Tomas, are locked in a room, begging Anna to keep them there. Anna ignores their warnings, takes the boys to a shelter, and sends them to bed. That is where the trouble starts.
Trailer, via Warner Bros..
The Legend Behind the Film
La Llorona is a figure from Mexican folklore, a weeping woman who drowned her children in a river and now wanders the earth, searching for others to replace them. The film leans heavily on that history, but it never commits to it fully. Instead, it treats the legend as a rumor, a superstition, a story told by immigrants and dismissed by the American authorities around Anna.
The problem is that the film never decides whether La Llorona is real or not. The mythology is rich enough to support a full narrative, but Chaves and his writers treat it as a plot device rather than a character. The result is a story that feels unfinished, a curse that is never fully explained, a horror that never coheres into something the audience can sit with.
Anna Tate-Garcia and the Family at the Center
Cardellini carries the film as Anna, a woman whose professional duty collides with a supernatural terror she cannot understand. Her performance is competent, but the script gives her little to work with. Anna is a good mother, a diligent worker, and a skeptic of the paranormal. Those traits are fine individually, but the film asks her to switch between them constantly, from dismissing the boys’ warnings to fearing La Llorona herself, without ever giving the audience a clear reason for why the shift happens.
The children fare even worse. Chris, played by Roman Christou, and Samantha, played by Jaynee-Lynne Kinchen, are meant to be the heart of the story. They are the ones La Llorona targets, the ones who see her first, the ones who suffer the most. But the film gives them almost nothing to do beyond scream and run. Their fear is genuine, but it is not earned, and the audience never gets to know them well enough to feel their loss.
Father Perez and the Religious Undercurrent
Tony Amendola plays Father Perez, a priest who practices mysticism to keep evil at bay. He is the closest thing the film has to a guide, the one person who believes in La Llorona and tries to help Anna. His scenes are the most interesting in the film, offering a rare glimpse into a world where the supernatural is treated as real. But even he is sidelined for stretches of the movie, reduced to a cameo in the final act.
The film’s religious undertones are a mixed blessing. The legend of La Llorona comes from Catholic Mexico, and the film nods to that history with references to saints and prayers. But the film never fully commits to the spiritual side of the story. It wants to be scary, but it also wants to be realistic, and the two goals cancel each other out.
The Drowning Scene and the Missing Payoff
The film’s central set piece is the discovery of Carlos and Tomas drowned in a river. It is a grim image, and it is meant to be the climax of the early plot. But the scene lands flat because the audience has not been prepared for it. The boys have been locked in a room, warned to stay put, and ignored. Their deaths should be a tragedy, but they feel like a convenience, a way to move the story forward rather than a consequence of the choices made earlier.
The film also introduces La Llorona herself, played by Marisol Ramirez, in a scene that is meant to be terrifying. She appears as a weeping woman, grabbing Chris’s wrist and leaving burns. The image is striking, but the moment is over in seconds, and the film never returns to it with the weight it deserves. La Llorona is a threat, but she is also a distant one, a presence that shows up briefly and then vanishes.
Comparing the Two Versions of the Legend
The film borrows its legend from Mexican folklore, but it also draws on the Conjuring Universe, the shared universe of James Wan’s horror films. The film was produced by Wan through his Atomic Monster banner, and while it is not considered an installment in the franchise, it shares its mythology with the wider Conjuring world.
| Element | The Curse of La Llorona | Mexican Folklore |
|---|---|---|
| Origin | 1673 Spain | Indigenous and colonial history |
| Setting | 1973 Los Angeles | Multiple locations |
| Main figure | La Llorona as a supernatural threat | A weeping woman who drowned her children |
| Tone | Supernatural horror | Folk storytelling |
The comparison shows how far the film strays from its source. The legend is simple: a woman drowns her children, becomes a ghost, and wanders the earth. The film complicates that with a modern setting, a bureaucratic plot, and a protagonist who must choose between her job and her faith. The result is a story that is neither faithful nor fresh, a middle ground where the horror loses its bite.
The Box Office Surprise
Despite its poor reviews, the film was a surprise success at the box office. It grossed $123.1 million worldwide against a $9 million budget, which is a healthy return for a horror film. That success is a credit to the marketing, not the filmmaking. The film was released on April 19, 2019, after premiering at South by Southwest on March 15, 2019, and it played to audiences hungry for scares. What they got was a film that promised terror and delivered confusion.
The film’s success is a reminder that horror is a genre of feeling, not necessarily of craft. A film can be poorly made and still succeed if it hits the right emotional note. The Curse of La Llorona does not hit that note. It confuses, frustrates, and finally exhausts the audience.
The Final Verdict
The Curse of La Llorona is a failure of ambition. It wanted to be a modern horror film that respected its folklore, but it settled for a generic thriller with a ghost in it. The result is a film that is forgettable, frustrating, and ultimately pointless. It is a film that takes a legend worth telling and turns it into a story worth forgetting.
The film is not without merit. Cardellini gives a solid performance, and the production design captures the 1970s with care. But those strengths are overwhelmed by the script’s weaknesses. The pacing is uneven, the scares are scattered, and the resolution is rushed. The film ends without answering the questions it raised, leaving the audience with a sense of disappointment rather than satisfaction.
The Curse of La Llorona is a film that wastes a good legend on a bad movie. It is a film that should have been better, and it is a film that will be forgotten quickly.
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