Generations of children across Central America have been taught to fear La Llorona, and the development of three different horror movies over a three-year period telling her story certainly didn’t ease anyone’s fears. She’s a legendary figure – and one of the more tragic ones at that. More popular versions of the legend say that she floats over bodies of water in her white funeral gown, forever weeping as she searches for her lost children. Less sympathetic versions of the story say she kidnaps children to replace her own, others say she seeks revenge on cheating husbands. Despite the motivations behind La Llorona’s cries, the overwhelming consensus among those telling her story warns that if you hear the wails of La Llorona, it’s already too late.
The deeply sorrowful nature of her story is what initially caught the eye of many filmmakers, as La Llorona’s tale has been depicted inhorrormovies as early as 1933 with the release of the Mexican filmLa Llorona. This was not the end of La Llorona influencing the genre, with her story being shown in the 1963 Mexican filmLa Maldición de la Llorona(The Curse of La Llorona), 2006’sKM 31: Kilómetro 31, and more recently in 2013’sMama, from Andy Muschietti andGuillermo del Toro. However, Hollywood’s fascination with her story has never been more apparent than it has been in recent years.
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What is the legend of La Llorona?
La Llorona, often referred to as “The Crying Woman” or “The Wailer” is a Mexican vengeful spirit who is said to roam near bodies of water mourning the children she drowned after finding out her husband had been cheating on her. The story is deeply rooted in Mexican popular culture, with her story being told to children to discourage them from walking alone in the dark or near bodies of water. While the earliest documentation of the La Llorona legend dates back to 1550 Mexico City, regional variations of the myth exist in several Central American cultures.
A typical iteration of this legend sees La Llorona depicted as a beautiful woman named Maria who marries a wealthy conquistador and has two children. One day, Maria sees her husband with another woman and, in a blind rage, drowns their children in a river. Faced with immediate guilt over the murder, she drowns herself but is unable to enter the afterlife. Maria is forced to live in purgatory and roam this earth as a spirit, searching for her children for eternity. As is the nature of local legends, the story of La Llorona differed depending on where it was being told.
In Guatemala, locals told the story of a Guatemala City woman who fell pregnant after an affair. In order to hide evidence of the affair from her husband, the woman drowned her freshly-born baby in a river. After she died, she was condemned in the afterlife to forever search for the son she drowned in every body of water she can find. This legend differs when viewed in Venezuelan history, being set in the region of Los Llanos and depicting a woman who died of sorrow after her children were killed. A version of the La Llorona myth even exists in the American Southwest, where a paired-down retelling is used to deter children from exploring dangerous areas alone.
La Llorona (2019)
Guatemalan rising star director Jayro Bustamante molds a crafty political drama under the guise ofa classic horror reimaginingin 2019’sLa Llorona. Set against the backdrop of the 1982 genocide of Guatemala’s indigenous Mayan population under then-dictator Efraín Ríos Montt, this modernization of the traditional mythos of La Llorona was initially met with mixed reviews from critics.
The story follows former dictator Enrique Monteverde’s (based on real-life dictator Montt) family while he is standing trial for the atrocities committed at his command. Though he is found guilty by the new government in place, Monteverde does not face any punishment for his crimes and non-stop protests are held outside of his home. Most of his household staff quit after the sound of a woman weeping throughout the night causes Monteverde to nearly shoot his wife, prompting the remaining housekeeper to bring another Kaqchikel woman from her village to work as a maid. Continuing protests keep everyone trapped in the house, where more and more supernatural things are happening to Monteverde and his wife, Carmen. In the movie’s climactic finale, it is revealed that Alma is the spirit of La Llorona, a mother who was executed by Monteverde himself while being forced to watch his soldiers drown her children. She possesses Carmen who, in a trance reliving Alma’s final moments, strangles her husband to death.
The Curse of La Llorona (2019)
Michael Chaves’ directorial debutThe Curse of La Lloronaacts asthe sixth installment toThe Conjuringconnected universe franchise. Premiering at South By Southwest prior to its theatrical release, the film was critically panned after its release and ended up being the lowest-performing film in theConjuringfranchise, despite technically being a box-office success.
In a roundabout way,The Curse of La Lloronaacts as an alternative origin story for the spirit. The opening scene shows a family playing in a field in 1600s Mexico when the youngest child gives his mother a necklace, which she promises she’ll treasure forever. Later, the boy goes on a hike and stumbles on his mother violently drowning his brother in a stream. He runs, horrified by what he had just seen, but isn’t fast enough to outrun La Llorona.
In 1970s Los Angeles, Linda Cardellini plays Anna, a social worker investigating a truancy case involving Patricia Alvarez’s two children. She goes to Patricia’s home where she finds the boys locked in a room, which she removes them from after Patricia tries to attack her – claiming they were in there to stay safe. The next day, the boys are found drowned in a nearby river and Patricia is the prime suspect. It is revealed that Patricia prays to the vengeful spirit that was haunting her family to bring her boys back to her in exchange for Anna’s children, who La Llorona viciously hunts over the next two days. Withthe help of a Catholic priestand a Mexican folk shaman, Anna and her family are able to kill La Llorona.
The Legend of La Llorona(2022)
2022’sThe Legend of La Llorona, written and directed by Patricia Harris Seeley, opened with a limited theatrical run beforemoving to streaming servicesthe following week. Critics’ responses to the movie weren’t great, and the film’s whopping 7% on Rotten Tomatoes didn’t help its descent into obscurity among other low-budget horror movies released in recent years.
The story opens similarly to 2019’sThe Curse of La Lloronaby introducing the legend of Maria, a woman from 1600s Mexico who was executed for her heinous crimes. A grieving family from California decides to take a vacation in the same region of Mexico as a way to reset after a recent tragedy, not knowing the history of the area they’re staying in. A restless spirit resides in the hills by their hotel and sets its sights on their young son.
There are several reasons why this version garnered the reception it ended up receiving. With dialed-in acting with an obvious lack of direction, obvious caricatures of Mexican people, conflicting tones in the dialogue, the treatment of the title character as a “twist”, and a poor resolution that suggests defeating a vengeful spirit only requires shooting it with a shotgun, audience expectations were sorely let down froma Danny Trejo horror movie.
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