Directed by Patricia Harris Seeley
Written by Cameron Larson and Jose Prendes
Starring Autumn Reeser, Danny Trejo and Antonio Cupo
Rated R for some violence and language
Runtime: 1 hour and 38 minutes
On VOD January 11

by Billy Russell, Staff Writer

When looking at a movie, you have to keep its audience in mind as to who to recommend it to. If it’s a raunchy comedy, for example, you don’t grade it on the same principals you would for some prestige drama. You’re not going to go into Dumb & Dumber and be shocked at the lack of insight into the characters; and you’re not going to watch Citizen Kane and balk at the lack of fart jokes. You have to align your expectations to the type of movie you’re seeing, and who it’s made for.

I’m not really sure who The Legend of La Llorona is for. From its first frames, it seems like maybe something that would be good for very young children, sort of like an extended episode of Goosebumps. One of those spooky shows that permeated the airwaves in the 1990s. The weeping woman (or Llorona) of the title is positively goofy in her appearance, slathered with stage makeup and does this thing where she chews about the side of her mouth. As an adult, the result is unintentionally funny—as a child, I might be able to suspend my disbelief a little bit better.

The thing is, The Legend of La Llorona is, I believe, intended for adults. Carly (Autumn Reeser) and her husband Andrew (Antonio Cupo), along with their child Danny (Nicholas Madrazo) head south to Mexico after the death of their young daughter, to grieve, to grow, to heal. The family is broken, constantly fighting, and believe that this trip might be just what they need. Little do they know, where they are headed, a spectral horror with an appetite for children awaits them and has its eyes set on young Danny.

The Legend of La Llorona is Rated R by the MPAA, and I could not begin to tell you why. All F-words have been replaced with “frick” and all its variations—my personal favorite is when Andrew even refers to some bad guys as “motherfrickers.” There is some slight violence in a flashback scene, on how the cursed Llorona came to be. This is maybe somewhere between PG and PG-13. But then there’s weird references to sex, there’s an attempt at a serious plot, here, with the main characters grieving with loss, and again, I have to wonder… who is this movie’s desired audience? Children will be bored by the plot’s emphasis on coping with loss and accepting grief, and adults will how with laughter at many of its unintentionally hilarious scares.

Autumn Reeser does an admirable job as Carly. She really does try. She has a moment that I think is supposed to feel like that moment in Aliens where Ripley dons the powerloader suit and confronts the queen. Carly gets suited up to battle the ghostly woman of the river, who has her child Danny, and has a one-liner about mommy coming to save him, but two minutes before, the only reason he got snatched by the Llorona is because she made some bizarre decisions that led to his capture. It doesn’t have the same oomph.

I could spend all day poking holes in the writing, but who cares? The movie is badly written. Take my word for it. Carly, at one point, tries to dismiss claims that the Llorona is a ghost, because ghosts don’t just grab people. That thing out there, she says, is no ghost. So, to be clear, the believes in ghosts, and she believes that the Llorona is, indeed, a monster. I have no idea why she’s splitting hairs, but this is the kind of movie we’re dealing with.

A movie doesn’t have to be well-written to be fun. A movie can be stupid, entertaining, empty calories. A movie doesn’t even have to have amazing production values either. What audiences are drawn to is ideas. If you can convey that audience effectively, it doesn’t matter what the special effects look like. It doesn’t matter that you can see the strings, or that the costumes look like they came from a Spirit Halloween store. The original Halloween had a guy wearing a spray-painted William Shatner mask and it was incredible. Jaws had technical issues, so you barely see the shark, and the movie is all the better for it. Imagination has always been the secret ingredient to filmmaking. The desire to tell a story will never be hindered by a low budget. Creativity knows no limits.

The problem is that The Legend of La Llorona is a wasteland of originality. It’s so by-the-numbers you know exactly how it’s going to end just as it starts. Every set-up, every scare, feels absolutely perfunctory. You never feel that the movie wants to do anything other than capitalize off of the other films containing “La Llorona” in the title. This is one of those movies that’s inept in a best-case scenario, and culturally tone-deaf at its worst. Aside from Danny Trejo in a bit role as Jorge (who’s always a welcome presence in any movie) and Angelica Lara as Veronica (there’s also too little of her, she’s fantastic), every other Mexican character is either trying to cross the border illegally into the United States, or a drug dealer for the cartel. Or a child-killing monster. You never do see the cartel deal or sell any drugs. They mostly just squat under the computer-generated moonlight and sneer over closed suitcases, with nary a client to be seen. The Llorona basically haunts one small stretch of Mexico, so geographically it makes little sense this house, this single location where the bulk of action takes place, would attract tourists, illegal immigration, and drug-dealing, but I digress. You know what you’re getting into.