The Movie: The Curse of La Llarona
The Director: Michael Chaves
The Cast: Linda Cardellini, Raymond Cruz, Patricia Velasquez, Roman Christou, Jaynee-Lynne Kinchen, Marisol Ramirez, Sean Patrick Thomas, Tony Amendola, Irene Keng
The Story: Ignoring the eerie warning of a troubled mother suspected of child endangerment, a social worker and her own small kids are soon drawn into a frightening supernatural realm.
The Review:
Yes, this movie is set within the Conjuring Cinematic Universe which of course includes the Conjuring films as well as The Nun and the Annabelle movies and yet there has barely been a mention of that leading up to the film's release. You would think whoever is in charge of marketing the movie would be all over the connectivity and cross promoting that would help to spike the ever important first week box office numbers but all they put out there was a "from the producers of" tag on the posters and in the trailer.
To me, this was a bit of a warning sign that maybe they didn't feel the film was worth of connecting to the rest of the franchise which so far has seen moderate to excellent success with fans and critics alike. Watching the movie really gave no definitive answer either way as the story is sort of stuck in the middle of being either good or bad. While I enjoyed it and there were a couple subtle nods to the franchise which was fun, I imagine it will come and go from my movie memory as quickly as it will be in and out of theaters.
Really, there's nothing wrong with the movie, but that's also where the problems come in as the film makers played it safe by sticking to a very formulaic approach to bringing the story to life. There was a real opportunity here to take a classic and relatively unknown folk tale and turn it into a truly frightening cinematic experience but all we got was the same tricks and tropes we've seen time and time again from so many other genre films.
If you like horror movies, you will probably be okay with this movie for the good things that it offers just be prepared to not be blown away. Set the bar to a level where you won't be disappointed then just kick back and have a good time. Yeah, that's about all I got.
No comments:
Post a Comment