Malevolent spirit/serial killer La Llorona
La Llorona (Marisol Ramirez) was the titular main villainess of the 2019 horror film The Curse of La Llorona.
Backstory[]
La Llorona's real name is not revealed in the film, though the folklore the film is based on states that her (presumed) birth name was Maria. Known for her immense beauty, she resided in a village in New Spain, and one day, Maria met a rancher with whom she fell in love. Sometime later, the couple got married and then had two sons together. However, on an unknown date in 1673, Maria walked in on her husband while he was in the arms of a younger woman, with her discovery of his affair sending her into a jealous and spiteful rage against him.
In the prologue of the film, she turned heel by drowning her sons, and after committing the murders, she drowned herself out of grief and guilt. Maria was denied entry into heaven until she found her children, and it was because of this that she spent around 300 years searching for them, being dubbed La Llorona (Spanish for "The Weeping Woman") due to her cries for her lost sons.
Events of The Curse of La Llorona[]
La Llorona's deranged search involved her sinister spirit abducting various children and drowning them, and it was in 1973 (the year the film is set in) that she was plaguing a psychotic single mother named Patricia Alvarez during her pursuit of the latter's sons, Carlos and Tomas. The villainess made physical contact with all three of them, causing bruises with her touch, leading to Patricia locking up her sons to hide them from La Llorona. This caught the attention of social worker Anna Tate-Garcia (the film's main protagonist), who—along with a police officer—went to the Alvarez residence and confronted Patricia. After breaking free from the heel-turned Patricia's attack and suspecting that the boys were locked up in a nearby room, Anna freed them and noticed the bruises, believing that they were caused by their demented mother, only for them to state otherwise.
Later that night, La Llorona successfully caught Carlos and Tomas at a child services shelter and drowned them in a nearby river (offscreen), leading to Anna being on call regarding the deaths and being screamed at by an angry Patricia during her handcuffing and arrest, who blamed the social worker for the double murder. After killing the boys, the evil La Llorona set her sights on Anna's children, Chris and Samantha, with the villainess appearing to the former after he left their mother's car to investigate the scene himself. She grabbed hold of him, and he escaped with bruises on his arm—with identical bruises appearing on Samantha's arm when the malevolent spirit grabbed her the next day. Anna herself also saw La Llorona and (along with Chris) came face-to-face with her ghostly form when the latter attempted to drown Samantha while she was taking a bath.
Climax & Second Demise[]
Anna went to Father Perez regarding her and her children's encounters with the spirit, with Perez sending the family to former priest Rafael Olvera for help. The quartet faced La Llorona in the film's climax, as the twisted apparition again went after Chris and Samantha, but she was forced out by Rafael and held at bay with a protective line made of fire tree seeds—a line that was accidentally broken when Samantha attempted to retrieve her stuffed doll. Having regained access, La Llorona attempted to drown Samantha and Anna in their pool, with her attempt on the latter's life coming after she dove in to save her daughter. Rafael blessed the pool's water, allowing Anna to successfully rescue Samantha while the seed line was fixed. Anna retrieved La Llorona's pendant during their scuffle, but then had to assist Rafael in locking her daughter up, as she was under the spirit's trance.
After that, a mysterious woman in white entered the house with a gun, took Chris and Samantha hostage, and also (non-fatally) shot Rafael, with the woman being revealed as none other than Patricia; earlier, she had released from prison due to a lack of evidence and the fact that she had a solid alibi for the period of time during which her sons died. The crazed woman was plotting to sacrifice Anna's children to La Llorona so that she could be reunited with Carlos and Tomas, with her intense desire for revenge on the protagonist serving as the motivation for her attempt to indirectly murder the two. It was after Chris and Samantha fled Patricia's grasp that she resorted to deliberately breaking the protective seed line, resulting in the maniacal ghost entering the Garcia house and locking Anna in the basement while she pursued her children in the attic. It was during this pursuit that La Llorona's human form was revealed when Chris held up her pendant, only for her demonic form to return when she saw herself in a mirror that was unintentionally unveiled by Sam. After Patricia had second thoughts and redeemed herself by setting Anna free, both the latter and Rafael fought against the unhinged spirit with a cross made from the wood of a fire tree, with La Llorona using her powers to disarm the pair. The former priest then retrieved the cross and tossed it to the social worker, who stabbed La Llorona in her chest with the weapon, destroying her for good.
Trivia[]
- Less than a month prior, Marisol Ramirez appeared as racist torturer Paula on The Rookie.
- Among other villainesses, Constance Welch from Supernatural is based on La Llorona, which can be seen due to her actions and also the fact that she was identified as a "woman in white." Patty Weyland from Crossing Jordan is another example, as she murdered her children and committed suicide after finding out that her husband was a bigamist with a separate family.