The Curse Of The Weeping Woman

This review may contain spoilers!

For what it's worth, probably the best of the Conjuring spinoff films thus far. I would give The Curse Of The Weeping Woman a 6/10.

The Curse Of The Weeping Woman follows Anna, a single widow and mother of two who must protect her children from the dark spirit, La Llorona. This film doesn't hold things too close to the chest which I was pretty impressed with; in fact you get shown elements of the supernatural entity early on and the presence of La Llorona throughout is a powerful way of intimidating the audience. This isn't a feature dedicated to jump scares, there's a lot of careful planning and steady building of tense scenes. The cinematography starts off rather rugged but as things progress you can see moments where the director has really tried to experiment and craft some visually fascinating moments, the way La Llorona is filmed is particularly commendable. The editing is the real triumph of this film I thought; horror can have a rather formulaic way of being cut together but every cut and transition seems rather purposeful in this which is a pleasing change of pace.

Roman Christou and Jaynee-Lynne Kinchen, who played Chris and Samantha respectively, are very young performers who show a lot of potential; Kinchen really wins you over but I liked Christou for the struggle he takes on himself in defending him and his sister from the dark spirit. Raymond Cruz, who played Rafael Olvera, gives a very entertaining disgruntled ex-priest; this is a character who doesn't operate like the Warrens or a priest but his wild tactics and begrudging care for this family make him an instant favourite. Tony Amendola, who played Father Perez, is a strong performer who is a nice returning role to see; Amendola has this ability that allows him to portray a character with inherent wisdom very well.

However, the best performance came from Linda Cardellini, who played Anna Tate-Garcia. I have really enjoyed watching Cardellini take on more leading roles of late, Green Book and Hunter Killer being some of the more noteworthy ones. But this feature she takes top billing and really owns the role, providing a mother figure who is very grounded and shows the struggle of raising two children by herself. There is an element of loss this role feels that I thought was quite poignant, seeing her still grieve for her husband is moving and adds a lot of depth. I also really felt that Cardellini, Christou and Kinchen are believable as a strong family unit. Anna is a fighter and won't back down from any challenge, she fights in her work and in defense of her two children. She is exactly the sort of horror protagonist I enjoy watching.

The Curse Of The Weeping Woman begins to fall short because it doesn't really try to break the narrative trend of most horror films. We get the initial victims, the main characters start to get haunted, just when the hauntings get a bit much the church or a holy man comes to the rescue and then the spirit either wins or loses. Honestly if this wasn't a film already set in a universe where the same thing has been done five times already then I probably wouldn't be so hard on it. But we need to start seeing the Conjuring universe produce fresh material, getting scared the same way each time is stale and it means you'll lose audience appeal ultimately. The entire storyline around the Patricia character causing the curse and coming in to help the spirit right at the end didn't exactly feel necessary either. The score for the film wasn't really apparent outside of a rather simple theme for La Llorona.

Patricia Velasquez, who played Patricia Alvarez, is a secondary antagonist the film doesn't really need and whom the film gives too much time to; Velasquez gives a rather stoic delivery that makes her hard to relate to or connect with despite her sympathetic plotline. Sean Patrick Thomas, who played Detective Cooper, feels like an awkward attachment to the Tate-Garcia family cast; the way this role has an overbearing presence on the state of family affairs feels like unnecessary conflict generated.