La Llorona: The Weeping Woman of The Conjuring Universe

La Llorona is the ghost of a grieving mother who drowned her own sons, and in The Curse of La Llorona (2019), directed by Michael Chaves, she haunts the family of a Los Angeles caseworker. Marisol Ramirez is credited in the role as La Llorona.

The name means the Weeping Woman, and the film leans on Mexican folklore by opening in 17th century Mexico, where the mother's act turns her into a restless spirit. The legend is also part of the wider Latin American folklore tradition, and the film uses it as the root of its monster before jumping to 1973 Los Angeles. There she is a pale, weeping figure who comes for children, and her attacks keep returning to water, from the river where the boys died to a family pool. The film treats her as a spirit in her own right, separate from the demons the Warrens fight elsewhere in the saga, such as Valak (see valak the nun).

The Curse of La Llorona runs 93 minutes, carries an R rating in the US and was released on April 19, 2019. Its world premiere took place at SXSW at the Paramount Theater in Austin, where it was introduced as the latest film in the Conjuring universe, according to Syfy. If you want the film itself, including its cast and where to stream it, go to the curse of la llorona. For the wider saga, see conjuring characters.

La Llorona's arc in the film runs from a folk legend set in Mexico to a very ordinary 1973 Los Angeles neighborhood, and it hinges on a prayer that lets her choose a new target. After the 17th century prologue, she does not act until Patricia Alvarez, locked out of her own sons' lives by Anna Tate-Garcia, blames the spirit for their drowning and warns that Anna's family is next.

From there the spirit works in small, wet, close range scares. Chris and Sam see a pale weeping woman, and Chris carries the mark of her touch. The Weeping Woman of the folklore only has to find a child to follow, and the film shows her doing exactly that, while Father Perez and then the former priest turned folk healer Rafael Olvera try to name and contain her.

Her most frightening attempt is the night in the pool, where she goes after Anna and Sam together, and Anna takes a necklace from her. That object gives the film its most human beat: Chris holds it up, and La Llorona briefly turns human and holds him as though he were her own child. Sam pulling the cover off a mirror breaks the moment, and she attacks again.

La Llorona is connected to the Conjuring universe through Father Perez, played by Tony Amendola, who also plays the priest in annabelle 2014. In The Curse of La Llorona he has dealt with an earlier haunted doll case, and that is the film's clearest thread back to the main saga.

Her closest tie in the story is to Patricia Alvarez, played by Patricia Velásquez. Patricia admits she prayed that La Llorona would take Anna's children in place of her own sons, which makes her both a victim and a cause of the haunting. Later she arrives with a gun, meaning to hand the children over, but changes her mind and lets Anna go.

The spirit's other relationships are with the family she targets. Anna Tate-Garcia (Linda Cardellini) is the widowed caseworker she hunts, Chris (Roman Christou) and Sam (Jaynee-Lynne Kinchen) are the children she tries to take, and Rafael Olvera (Raymond Cruz) is the man who knows how to stop her. Chris is the one she mistakes for her own child.

La Llorona is destroyed when Anna stabs her with a cross that Rafael made from a tree beside the river where Patricia's sons died. Patricia gives up her plan to trade Anna's children for her own, Rafael leaves after the family thanks him, and the Tate-Garcias are safe for now.

The last shot shows Anna looking down at a puddle by the roadside, which hints that the water spirit's influence may linger. The film does not confirm that she returns.

That leaves her status as destroyed within her own story, with a small question mark over the final image. For where the film sits among the others, see conjuring movies in order, and for the next film in the saga, see conjuring first communion.

In my opinion, the best La Llorona moments are the ones that use water and restraint rather than volume, and the pool scene is the strongest of them. When she tries to drown Anna and Sam, the horror comes from the ordinary setting, a family pool in 1973 Los Angeles, and from the fact that her story is about a mother drowning children. It could be argued that this is the most direct payoff of the film's opening in 17th century Mexico.

The necklace scene comes second. Chris holds up the necklace, La Llorona briefly turns human and embraces him as if he were her own son, and the scare becomes something sadder before Sam uncovers a mirror and the spell breaks. In my opinion it is the moment where the spirit is allowed to be a grieving mother for a few seconds, which makes the next attack land harder.

Third, perhaps, is the cross made from the riverside tree. It gives the ending a practical, folk healer logic that suits Rafael, and it is a different kind of finish from the Nun films, where The Nun (2018) turns on the blood of Christ and The Nun II (2023) on the Words of Institution. The film earned $123 million worldwide on a $9 million budget, according to Box Office Mojo. That being said, as a creature she is less layered than Valak, and I would rank her scares below the best of conjuring movies ranked.