The Curse of La Llorona (2018)

(On Cable TV, January 2020) Slick, overproduced and yet so, so underwhelming, The Curse of La Llorona is about as ordinary a horror movie can be when it’s the result of dozens of other movies blended together. Mixing ethnic folk horror with demonic possession, evil-fighting priests and child endangerment (plus a single mother as hero!), it still can’t make any of those surefire elements spark. Plenty of jump scares from director Michael Chaves can’t compensate for a lacklustre script and rote elements. The only thing that mildly works is the ethnic atmosphere of Mexican folklore that set up La Llorona, but don’t expect too much here either—although I’m told the movie did good business in Latin communities. Linda Cardellini is wasted here and can’t rescue the film on her own. At least the images are clear, crisp and clean—but that’s not much of a comfort when they don’t show anything of much value. It’s a bit sad to see “The Conjuring universe” get less and less interesting at every successive movie in the series, but what else do you expect? The real horror villains are always the Hollywood studio executives.