In April 2019, New Line Cinema released James Wan’s production of The Curse of La Llorona, directed by Michael Chaves. It brought mainstream US attention to the important Mexican legend of “La Llorona,” or “the wailing woman.” In most versions, La Llorona is a banshee figure, often dressed in white, crying for her children whom she has killed after herself being betrayed by a lover. The figure has been connected to a broader history of colonialism in Mexico, as this excellent article by Dr. Amy Fuller explains. Numerous cinematic incarnations of the legend of La Llorona precede Chaves’s film, many made in Mexico. La Maldición de la Llorona, made in 1961 but released in Mexico in 1963 and in the US in 1969, and directed by Rafael Baledón, is a version worth watching despite its limitations. It should be stated up front that one of its principal limitations is that La Maldición is devoid of any taint of colonial critique; the film’s reference point is the Hollywood horror tradition more so than the historically- and politically rooted La Llorona of Mexican folklore.
