Royce (Jim Andrews), a racist asshole and washed-up television
presenter who's now left with doing a series called Paranormal News, plans
to kickstart his career again by doing a show about the legendary La
Llorona, which involves locking himself into a house that's somehow
connected to the legend with a skeleton crew - his p.a. Alice (Tina
Truong), his cameraguy Jay (Tom Curitore), technician Jacob (Carlos Javier
Castillo) and his science advisor Doug (Mitch Ryan) -, with the intention
to have his whole crew killed and himself emerging as the only survivor of
a paranormal ordeal. And he sees to it that everybody but him is killed by
hiring a half-witted thug (Terrence Williams). Thing is though, despite
Royce's protests, the team takes a hitchhiker, young Hana (Mary Sanchez)
with them, and she is in some way connected to the real Llorona. Once
everyone's locked into the house (the thug included), the killing starts,
but almost none of the kills are done by the hired killer, who's more
interested in raping the girls on hand. No, most of the deaths can be
accounted to the real Llorona who has once lived in this very house, and
Hana turns out to be her granddaughter - not that this would save her life
... In the end, only Royce and Jay are left alive, and Royce, the only
one who is not yet convinced of the existence of La Llorona, shoots Jay in
cold blood, to then conclude his report with a final statement about the
ordeal he's been through ... but La Llorona has the last laugh. An
entertaining low budget shocker that combines a tight and well-written
story, decent pacing and a competent directorial effort into a piece of
(despite its subject matter) light-hearted but by no means silly fun that
doesn't make one mistake so many other low budget shockers tend to make -
it doesn't take itself too seriously, and for exactly that reason it works
all the better. Also it helps of course that director Terrence Williams
has resisted the temptation to use trendy shaky handheld camera
footagethat so many other filmmakers think is cool these days following Blair
Witch Project - but which has grown really old really fast. A
pretty good flick, actually.
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