The urban legend of La
Llorona (Spanish for The Weeping Lady),
comes to life in this morbid tale about
the monstrous, vengeful boogey woman who
wanders near bodies of water and wails
into the night for her lost children, who
she drowned after being spurned and
deserted by their father.
Miguel (Will Morales), a mercenary, soon
learns that La Llorona is anything but a
legend, when he is commissioned to locate
and return a young runaway to a sleepy
riverside town in order to rid it of La
Lloronas curse.
Miguel is successful in recovering the
young girl; however as he is nearing the
town he swerves to avoid a figure
standing in the road and crashes his car.
Awakening, he finds that the young girl
is missing and heads towards the town to
find her. There he discovers that cashing
in might mean cashing out, in a story
filled with Latin mythology, irony, and
deception.
An impressive beginning showing the legend of the title character showing artwork on what has happened etc. Seemed to have a nice start off but then we get into the story with a bad camcorder camera on some sort of a thug whom is Miguel driving in his vehicle with a woman he's kidnapped in the back of her seat gagged in which this didn't look impressive at all. Then we have him speeding along and suddenly someone walks in fron causing an accident but this picture was a little too dark to see clearly on what was going on. But a neat dark foggy effect when he gets out of his car which is a nice moment for a horror flick.
Plus impressive no budget ghostly moments when he goes to the home with more mist and seeing the ghoul La Lorona briefly trying to approach him with weird going ons in the home. The examples like him talking to a mysterious cloacked figure which was a bit rough but it can look fun as well as him hanging himself as this didn't look overly convincing but impressive shots on him taking his life.
Then there's supposed to be a moment with a child running around the home which is too dark to see and then Miguel telling a priest who's residing in the next room about this as the moments here looked mysterious and effective but it's supposed to take place past midnight but can tell by his window it's daylight with birds chirping outside as this doesn't do the trick too well to make this scene seem spooky.
Effective situations when we spot a family gathering around a sick teenage girl Luciana with a nice camera shot zooming down on her which is a good add on to the plot.
Nice creepy moment when Miguel spots La Lorona outide in their window with her attacking someone which is another nice pointer to a horror story.
A nice discussion between Miguel and Ann Marie weeping about what had happened as the scene looked mildly effective which was fairly well done for what it was all worth watching on their surroundings.
Great situation when Luciana is in a trance getting up from her bed and starting to walk out while the spirit is calling to her which looked perfectly spooky.
Another great moment was when Miguel and Mary go to a truck in the misty night and spot someone inside which has a shocking result as fans of horror violence may get a kick out of seeing this which was done in fine taste due to their no budget.
Then later on in the story we see a cult ceremony taking place with good dark shots on some pentagrams as well as some of these people revealing their darkest secret. It looks good during the beginning but it slopes a bit when it gets going as well as seeing La Lorona attacking as this didn't look overly impressive to watch.
Then we have nice shots on Ann Marie going to the river but there's a confrontation between her and Miguel while pointing a gun at him as you can tell their scene was a green screen shot with a background outside especially with their voices echoeing. This wasn't impressive at all nor did it draw you in wondering if she will pull the trigger.
Bottom line is that I could not understand the
story to this as it wasn't clear at all
which was the reason I got the info from
the myspace site. The movie was made on a cheap camcorder
and it was too dark to see the picture of
it too. However it can be fun at times but a drag
in other parts. Loosely based on a novel by Ray John
De Aregon.
The acting sometimes is a
little too overdramatic with the cast but
some of it seems to pull through okay in
certain spots while watching it through. Will Morales (Miguel) portray a bad ass character in which he seemed very mediocre while doing this but tried to show off decent energy for whatever he had to do here. Had the right looks and motive to play this role but needed a bit of help to portray his character.
Mary Sanchez (Ann Marie) seemed to pull through in a fair fashion as someone troubled and upset in which she shows off a nice sobbing attitude. But other times her accent was too strong and couldn't get into her characteristics too well by being over the top when she acts aggressive especially towards the end of her performance.
Denise Gossett (Mary) is probably the best out of the whole cast as she is an experienced actress. She shows off a nice sharpness in her personality as well as showing great energy when the suspense piles up. She seemed to breeze through showing her wicked side but when she cries and begs for mercy she's quite off.
Joel Bryant (Sam) also stood out quite well as a disturbed preacher of some sort. He was good with his angered expressions as well as his deep and intimidating voice making his role truly mysterious whenever he behaves this way. Seemed to ull his weight okay but during a cult ceremony he's slightly over the top.
Carrie Wallace (Luciana) had an effective supporting role as someone whom is ill in which she reacts well to being upset and helpless offering good facial expressions and reactions to what she's going through. Also does well going into a trance in which she studied her part pretty nicely.
A head is decapitated in a
truck
Flesh is bitten off someone's neck
We have a
nice music score with QDC and
there are alot of moments that his
keyboard playing sounds similar to the
music in the 1982 cult classic My
Bloody Valentine. We hear the bonging type sounds which isn't too bad for a simple synthersizer composing. Also there's fast beats and other hyped up music which didn't sound the best and some electronic synthesizer music for the closing credits which didn't sound all that great. |
