The Curse of the Weeping Woman  ★★½

SINCE when did a loose collection of horror films produced by James Wan become known as ‘The Conjuring Universe’?

This new marketing slogan doesn’t even make sense and, in the case of the latest film, is barely true.

There is one inconsequential scene in The Curse of the Weeping Woman that connects it to the Annabelle doll.

Anyway, that annoying aspect out of the way, let’s get to the film itself.

The story is based on the Mexican folklore of La Llorona, a woman in the 16th Century who, after discovering her husband was having an affair, drowned their two children and then killed herself.

Legend has it that once La Llorana, the weeping woman, takes your children, the only way to retrieve them is to pass the curse onto another family.

After a short prologue establishing the legend, the film jumps to Los Angeles in 1973 and focuses on two mothers.

Anna (Linda Cardeneli) is bringing up two children alone following death of her police officer husband. She is a Case Officer with the welfare department and is asked to accompany police to the address of one of her clients.

At the home, Anna mistakenly thinks she is helping the situation by letting Patricia’s two children out of a locked cupboard. But in fact Patricia (Patricia Velasquez) was trying to protect them from La Llrona who subsequently drowns the youngsters.

Patricia blames Anna and the curse is passed on with Anna and her children terrorised to the point where they turn to an unconvential priest, Raphael (Raymond Cruz), to help banish the demon.

This film follows a familiar narrative path but is punctuated by some creepy scenes, paricularly one involving the two children in a car, but more exploration of the legeand might have helped fill some plot holes around character motivations.

This is particularly so for La Llorona herself as it’s never really explained why a cheating husband leads her to kill children. I mean, why not kill cheating husbands?

The film is written by Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis, a teamthat interestingly is also responsible for the script of teen romance Five Feet Apart which was released within a week or so of this film.

Linda Cardellini gives the stand-out performance and the last 12 months have certainly been some of the most note-worthy of her career with credits in Avengers: Endgame, Hunter Killer, Green Book and A Simple Favour.

First-time director Michael Chaves does a good job and has been handed the reins of Conjuring 3.

For the record, the previous movies in this alleged ‘universe have been The Conjuring and Conjuring 2, Annabelle and Annabelle: Creation and The Nun.  Next up later in 2019 will be Annabelle Comes Home.

I’ve enjoyed all of them, even the much-maligned The Nun. The best aspect of the films is the fact they have all been period pieces.