Curse ends Conjuring’s magic
The Curse of the Weeping Woman (M, 93 mins) Directed by Michael Chaves Reviewed by James Croot ★★
‘Sometimes it’s better to keep the genie in the bottle.’’ It might have come from a trailer for the next instalment (demonic dollsequel Annabelle Comes Home) in this burgeoning horror series, but it’s the quote that stayed with me after enduring 90 minutes of tepid thrills and second-rate scares.
It’s with some sadness that I have to report that the sixth time is not the charm. The Curse of the Weeping Woman is proof that The Conjuring universe has lost its magic.
Set in the year of mine and The Exorcist’s birth, debutant director Michael Chaves’ tale focuses on widowed Los Angeles social worker Anna Tate-Garcia’s (Green Book and live-action Scooby Doo’s Linda Cardellini) battle against a more than 300-year-old scorned Mexican bride.
At first, she thinks it’s simply a case of child neglect at a home that’s regularly appeared on her case file.
However, when the Alvarez boys turn up dead and her own children start being spooked by something that does more than just go bump in the night, Anna seeks the help of her friendly, neighbourhood Latino priest.
Somewhat shaken by a previous encounter with a possessed piece of
porcelain, he fobs her off onto an unorthodox ex-priest ‘‘operating on the fringes of religion and science’’.
Armed with a series of household staples – egg for smearing all over the house, a line of coffee beans to act as a doorstop – it seems Rafael Olvera (Raymond Cruz, Major Crimes) is the only man who can stop this ‘‘evil that has no boundary’’.
Unfortunately, despite some clever visual tricks and tracking shots, it’s also an evil with virtually no originality.
The script from Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis (who also collaborated on last month’s teen drama Five Feet Apart) stumbles along, seemingly constantly changing its rules, shifting its goalposts and dredging up old horror tropes.
Our protagonists are predictably – and with depressing regularity – propelled against walls and plunged into pools, as the story cobbles together bits of everything from Ouija: Origin of Evil to Case 39, The Ring and Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones.
What’s worse, is that – after a promising mood-setting opening – the visuals quickly default to gloomy, the soundtrack settles on permanently screechy and the filmmakers decide to prioritise endless jump scares over anything resembling a compelling plot.
A movie to make you yearn for the scary movies where a boogeyman (or woman) had the decency to explain their motives, Weeping Woman’s only real curse is making you waste time watching its by-the-numbers horror play out.