The curse of the Weeping Woman Review - Fairly efficient genre tricks

The curse of the Weeping Woman

U/A: Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Director: Michael Chaves
Cast: Linda Cardellini, Patricia Velásquez, Sean Thomas, Raymond Cruz
Rating:

This film, derived from a Latin American folk tale, has been force-fitted into the Conjuring-Annabelle universe with writers Mikki Daughty and Tobias Iaconis and Director Michael Chaves turning a demented criminal act into grist for an insidious tale involving a social worker working with abandoned wives, having to bear the brunt of this conspired opportunism.

The narrative opens with the origin of the folklore in 17th century Mexico where it is said that a beautiful woman (abandoned by her husband) in a fit of jealous rage, drown their two male offspring, kills herself and then roams around as a restless weeping ghost seeking to replace her two dead children by sacrificing other children. The film then leaps to 1973 Los Angeles, a convenient period setting that hopes to link-up a Priest from the Annabelle world - transporting him into the weeping woman miniverse. A recent cop-widow Anna (Linda Cardellini) who works for Child Protective Services, has just been entrusted with the task of rescuing two young boys from their abusive mother, Patricia Alvarez (Patricia Velasquez). Anna puts the boys in a home for the evening hoping they would feel secure and comforted in the care of professionals. But a late night call from the cops tell a different story. The boys are dead and Alvarez, holds Anna accountable.

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The malevolent ghost- a typically yellow-eyed darkly blotchy skinned bride weeping icky black tears starts haunting Sam and Chris. The kids get spooked but the audience don't. The jump-scares don't have the power to scare. The opening and shutting of doors and windows accompanied by sound effects don't scale up the scares either. The set-up is intriguing enough but the visions are feeble and the horror quotient is laughable. Anna claims she is no believer and hesitates to take the rosary gifted by the priest. But once her kids are affected and strange things begin to happen she seeks help from a curandero - a ex-priest turned Shaman, Rafael Olvera (Raymond Cruz), who uses his skills to keep fear at bay. Cordellini and Cruz do their best to make this trope happy formulaic poser an efficient one, but alas!

Also Read: Linda Cardellini explains why she did The Curse of the Weeping Woman

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