The Conjureverse, which began on a high note with the first
Conjuring film, has now, 5 films into the series, begun to go downhill.
This latest film is connected to the shared universe through the character of
Father Perez (Tony Amendola), who appeared briefly in Annabelle.
This movie tries hard to duplicate James Wans’ style he used
to great effect in Insidious and the first 2 Conjuring films, and it fails
miserably. What we get is a stupid movie with a predictable story, filled with
characters who make dumb decisions and don’t communicate, cheap jump scares
that are telegraphed miles away, and no effort to create atmosphere or build
tension. It feels more like a lazy cash grab to try to adapt a Mexican story
told by generations to try to make a quick buck.
Anyone who’s latino grew up with stories of La Llorona. I
was told that she had dropped her kid in a lake and they drowned, so if you
hear her crying at night, it means that she’ll get take you to replace her lost
child. It was a story told by elders to get their kids to behave.
The story that’s told in this movie is of a beautiful woman
who goes mad when she finds her husband cheating with another woman. So she
takes revenge on him by drowning their 2 young sons in the river. Now her ghost
is going around looking for children to drown. The film takes place in the
early 70’s, where a child protective services worker named Anna Garcia (played
by Linda Cardellini) goes to investigate one of her clients, who’s 2 young sons
have not been attending school. Long story short, she takes them from the
mother, they are put in foster care, then they are killed by La Llorona. Turns
out their mother was trying to protect them. Now La Llorona is after Anna’s 2
young children.
What follows is an uninspired story where nothing
interesting or surprising happens. When Anna hears that they boys she took out
of the home have disappeared and their bodies were found, having been drowned, what does she
do? She drives to the scene of the crime with her KIDS IN THE CAR. Seriously,
who the fuck would take their kids to the location where 2 kids dead bodies are
laying around???? She tells her kids to stay in the car, and of course the son
doesn’t, so La Llorona sees him and grabs his hand, burning it (aka putting her
mark on him). And when mom comes back and finds him acting scared in the car
and asks what’s wrong, of course he says “oh nothing”, because kids totally
keep quiet about a demonic woman who just grabbed your arm and burned it.
La Llorona is basically a ghost woman dressed in a white
wedding gown, with a white, creepy face and glowing eyes. She’d be scary if she
wasn’t so boring and predictable. Like I said before, cheap jump scares ensue.
There’s not a single scary scene in the movie, everything that happens you can
see coming from a mile away. Oh look, young daughter is in the bathtub, I bet
La Llorona is gonna suddenly pop out from behind and try to drown the kid.
Check! Oh look, there’s the window opened by itself and the curtains are
suddenly blowing. I bet La Llorona is gonna pop out from behind the curtain.
Check! Oh look, water is suddenly dripping from above onto the mother’s head. I
bet when she looks up she’ll see La Llorona who’ll swoop down and attack.
Check! That’s pretty much how each “scare” goes.
The director of this film (Michael Chaves) has been hired to
direct the 3rd Conjuring film, and I’m afraid that it’ll turn out
like this: empty, devoid of any tension, suspense or real scares. I’ll say that
this movie is better than The Nun, but only by a very tiny percent. If they
don’t slow down, this series is gonna crash and burn, though it already is
starting to stale. I really wish James Wan would come back and direct the 3rd
Conjuring film. He simply has a talent at making effective, creepy films that
turn out better than they should be. Oh well. The new Annabelle looks
promising, so I’ll keep my fingers crossed that it will deliver something that
this lame offering doesn’t; something that’s actually effective and scary.
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