All right guys, as of writing this review it's a Sunday evening, Scotland's weather is currently trying to murder motorists for no adequately explained reason and I, for better or worse, have been drinking. So you know what that means. Time to review a shitty modern horror film starring a Mexican ghost, and do you know what that means? That's right, frequent, unnecessary Mexican border jokes. Hey, I'm just saying a border wall is a bit fucking useless when the Mexicans can walk through it.
Anyways, do you know what I hate? No, not Mexicans, I don't hate them. If it wasn't for them I wouldn't have years of happy Twitter memories to look back on whenever junkies OD in the hallway outside my flat. No, what I hate is 'universe movies'.
Remember when Harry Potter decided it was going to split the last book into two movies and then every other teen wank-fest decided to play follow the leader and prolong our agony in such an exploitative manner I thought I was in a findom relationship with Kristen Stewart? Well now that Marvel and to a lesser extent DC (because quite frankly who the hell knows what the fuck they're doing) have established their 'cinematic universes', the natural conclusion was for modern horror cinema to follow suit. Gone are the days when 'Friday the 13th Part 3' was followed up by 'Friday the 13th Part 4'; nowadays if I were to watch a Friday movie I could look forward to a spin off movie explaining the origins of Crazy Ralph's bicycle and how it's actually haunted or something.
As of this writing the third 'Conjuring' movie has hit cinemas and all I can think of is that this would all have been over by now if this were the 80s and movie studios weren't inclined to give every element of their films their own separate backstories. But we all know why this happens; you motherfuckers keep giving them your money. Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you? Who the hell went to see 'The Nun'? Give me your addresses. I'll kill you myself.
At the very least 'The Curse of La Lorona' shows that they're running thin on ideas. At least 'Annabelle' and 'The Nun' represented original things that actually appeared in the main 'Conjuring' series. La Lorona is a real life Mexican urban legend that some hack wrote a screenplay about, James Wan jizzed his kecks upon reading and slapped a 'Conjuring' sticker on. This is cultural appropriation. Where are the Twitter goons when you need them?
I decided to write this while smashed off my ass because quite frankly I could tell you what happens in these movies with my eyes closed and my girlfriend bitching at me about the suspiciously dead prostitutey smell coming from the boot of my car. Want me to tell you? Here goes: Everyone is boring, the ghost isn't scary and about 80% of the film is people walking down corridors investigating sounds no one in their right goddamn mind would ever bother to.
What's that? I heard a small creaking noise of a type associated with living in a building? I'd better go and check it out. Sit back as I take you, the audience, on a tour of my entire fucking house. Don't worry, I'll take approximately a decade to do it so you can get a real good look at my boring fucking life.
I'd better tell you what the movie is about. Hold on to your arses, guys. You're in for a hell of a shock.
The film follows an average suburban family....
Hah! I saw that look! You were totally shocked!
Okay to be fair the father is dead because that happens when you're a police officer in Los Angeles. Unless you're John Spartan and you got frozen and thawed out in the year 2021. In which case you will pray for death.
So anyways the mother of the family, Anna is a caseworker who visits a crazy Mexican woman on a child welfare check. She makes the police officer wait outside which always works out well, only to find that she's locked both her sons in a closet with eyes painted all over it. Anna is attacked by the woman, as was predicted by anyone with basic pattern recognition abilities. She is arrested, the children are placed in the care of state child protective services and then La Lorona shows up and drowns them both thereby saving them from years of government bureaucracy and foster care abuse.
For some reason the local police invite Anna to the crime scene and even more perplexingly she invites her fucking kids; one of whom goes walkabouts and comes into contact with the weeping woman, thereby contracting the curse. What is this horrifying curse, you might ask?
Well she jumps out and yells boo a lot. That's basically it. Utilise those aforementioned pattern recognition skills, people. You saw 'The Conjuring'? Well it's basically that but Mexican. Hey, don't blame me. YOU voted for Biden.
Okay, I'll say this for the Conjuring movies. They're at least interesting in that they have real life events to back them up. If by real life events you mean that the extent of the Warren's involvement in the Enfield Poltergeist case was that they apparently showed up once and didn't really do anything.
What I'm trying to tell you here is that there's not much to tell you here. I'm kind of sobering up now and I'm wondering why I'm even bothering to review this. I'm a little embarrassed if I'm honest. I've got way more interesting things to review and I decided to choose this and I think it might be because my girlfriend hid all the sharp objects and this was the only form of self-harm I had access to. I was having a bad night, okay. I live in Scotland, leave me alone.
Anyways this movie sucks. There's very little reason for it to be set in the 70s other than its tenuous relationship to the Conjuring 'universe'. Very little is made of the fact that the family patriarch is dead. I'm guessing the intention was to make Raymond Cruz' character Rafael into a surrogate father figure for the kids later in the movie but they don't really make a thing out of it. He just kind of exists and so does everyone else. Rafael himself has his moments but pretty much every character in this movie is boring as hell and exudes almost no personality whatsoever. Thus my fuck supply is at somewhat of a deficit; especially when the kids are some of the dumbest you will see in the genre. Stuffed toy lying out on the doorstep? Let's stretch over and risk breaking the line of seeds that are the only thing stopping the Mexican demon woman from busting into your house and stealing your social security and fruit picking jobs before ripping your soul out through your fuck-hole. Sounds like a swell idea.
Speaking of said Mexican demon woman, she sucks. She actually reminds me of the various Conjuring universe rip-off movies that have been cropping up everywhere lately. She looks that fucking naff. She looks like she's got two tickets to the Dimmu Borgir concert and she's desperate for anyone to come with her other than other Dimmu Borgir fans. She's in fact so crap that she's defeated by Anna stabbing her in the chest with a crucifix made from the wood of a special kind of tree. Hell, anyone can die from that. Just ask the prostitute in the boot of my car.
If your demon can be killed by me covering my car in holy water and then running her down while she's on her way to the shops for cigarettes then your demon is shit. Shit I tell you!
There's a bit where Anna takes her kids to the doctor and he sees the burn marks on their arms and calls child services on her, but that plot thread gets dropped like a MOAB pretty quickly. Oh yeah, La Lorona burns you when she touches you. I have no idea why that is. Her whole schtick is that she drowns you because that's what she did to her own children. I guess it wasn't as intimidating to have their fingers go all pruny when she grabbed them instead.
Overall Quality Rating - 1/5
I'm sorry, I have no idea why I did this. I don't know why I wasted my time and yours. I was upset and angry at the world and I took it out on all of you and I apologise. Please forgive me.
Idiot Rating - 1/5
There's this one bit where the kids get chased by the demon woman while she's draped in a table cloth like a child's Halloween costume which is pretty special in its own way but really it's me who needs the Idiot Rating here. Seriously, you all deserve better than this. I have failed you and I want to fucking die.
I'm DeadEye and I hope I rot in Hell.
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