Pakistani multiplexes these days are dominated by the super powerful and the supernatural. With Avengers: Endgame – which we reviewed last week – obviously hogging the majority of the limelight, there is still space for Captain Marvel, Shazam and Hellboy. Managing to find a slot amidst the comic book heroes and villains, and indeed the recent Lollywood offerings that have managed to ward off the weak local challenges, is The Curse of La Llorona.
If you’ve seen Endgame and don’t care much for Shazam and Hellboy – of course, you could’ve already seen these as well, and one would’ve hoped that you watched Captain Marvel before Endgame – The Curse of La Llorona could be your Saturday night horror staple. However, there are certain things you’d have to equip yourselves with before you head to the cinema.
Among the most crucial would be low expectations. If you require protection from horror cliches, you might need to take your shield along as well! It would be extremely helpful if you fall within the 13- 15 years age bracket, and if you aren’t really familiar with some of the classic horror flicks of decades gone by.the Curse of La Llorona is a pretty lazy attempt to garner a few quick scares over the course of an hour and a half, hence narrowing it down to a clearly selected audience, that might just want to go to the big screen to scream and/or laugh out loud with friends.
Linked to the Conjuring franchise, even though not entirely a sequential part of it, The Curse of La Llorona is short on innovation, and high on repetition. What it also is short on is any interest in generating intrigue in the screenplay, and almost entirely dedicated to creating a continuum of scenes, designed to converge on that scream-inducing moment on the big screen.
It’s the year 1973 and Anna (Linda Cardellini), a widowed social worker, is looking into the case of Patricia Alvarez (Patricia Velasquez), who says her children are being attacked by the ghost of La Llorona in Los Angeles. The ghost in question has its origins in 1673 Mexico, where a woman killed both of her children to take revenge on her husband.
Patricia’s kids die. And the curse is passed on to Anna, who has two children of her own.
As is obvious following the brief rendezvous with the storyline, the filmmakers haven’t exactly given much time to making the screenplay particularly ingenious. The ghost is centuries’ old, the curse keeps passing on to whoever comes across, and seemingly there is no end to it – until there is.
Cardellini does whatever is required of her in a role that she clearly is overqualified for. The script doesn’t have enough depth and doesn’t give her character enough layers to demonstrate the extent of her ability.
Director Michael Chaves can both be credit with making the most of what is at his disposal in terms of writing, and criticised for not doing more to add to the film’s overall atmosphere. This results in the film relying too much on intermittent moments of the aforementioned enforced cliches, which for horror buffs won’t be the slightest bit as scary as they are intended to be.
A lot of the blame here would go to the writers Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis who seem to have done most of their writing for an audience entirely unfamiliar with the horror genre.
And it is only that particular audience that might derive any joy from the film, or indeed those diehard fans of The Conjuring that might rejoice at whatever they can get from the franchise. For others, if you are a gang capable of extracting frequent laughter at horror screenings, you’ll find plenty to laugh at The Curse of La Llorona.
If you’ve seen Endgame and don’t care much for Shazam and Hellboy – of course, you could’ve already seen these as well, and one would’ve hoped that you watched Captain Marvel before Endgame – The Curse of La Llorona could be your Saturday night horror staple. However, there are certain things you’d have to equip yourselves with before you head to the cinema.
Among the most crucial would be low expectations. If you require protection from horror cliches, you might need to take your shield along as well! It would be extremely helpful if you fall within the 13- 15 years age bracket, and if you aren’t really familiar with some of the classic horror flicks of decades gone by.the Curse of La Llorona is a pretty lazy attempt to garner a few quick scares over the course of an hour and a half, hence narrowing it down to a clearly selected audience, that might just want to go to the big screen to scream and/or laugh out loud with friends.
Linked to the Conjuring franchise, even though not entirely a sequential part of it, The Curse of La Llorona is short on innovation, and high on repetition. What it also is short on is any interest in generating intrigue in the screenplay, and almost entirely dedicated to creating a continuum of scenes, designed to converge on that scream-inducing moment on the big screen.
Linked to the Conjuring franchise, even though not entirely a sequential part of it, The Curse of La Llorona is short on innovation, and high on repetition
It’s the year 1973 and Anna (Linda Cardellini), a widowed social worker, is looking into the case of Patricia Alvarez (Patricia Velasquez), who says her children are being attacked by the ghost of La Llorona in Los Angeles. The ghost in question has its origins in 1673 Mexico, where a woman killed both of her children to take revenge on her husband.
Patricia’s kids die. And the curse is passed on to Anna, who has two children of her own.
As is obvious following the brief rendezvous with the storyline, the filmmakers haven’t exactly given much time to making the screenplay particularly ingenious. The ghost is centuries’ old, the curse keeps passing on to whoever comes across, and seemingly there is no end to it – until there is.
Cardellini does whatever is required of her in a role that she clearly is overqualified for. The script doesn’t have enough depth and doesn’t give her character enough layers to demonstrate the extent of her ability.
Director Michael Chaves can both be credit with making the most of what is at his disposal in terms of writing, and criticised for not doing more to add to the film’s overall atmosphere. This results in the film relying too much on intermittent moments of the aforementioned enforced cliches, which for horror buffs won’t be the slightest bit as scary as they are intended to be.
A lot of the blame here would go to the writers Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis who seem to have done most of their writing for an audience entirely unfamiliar with the horror genre.
And it is only that particular audience that might derive any joy from the film, or indeed those diehard fans of The Conjuring that might rejoice at whatever they can get from the franchise. For others, if you are a gang capable of extracting frequent laughter at horror screenings, you’ll find plenty to laugh at The Curse of La Llorona.