[Demdike@Cult Labs]

La Llorona (1933)

Translated as The Crying Woman and based on the Hispanic legend of a vengeful ghost who is said to roam waterfront areas mourning her children whom she drowned. La Llorona is to be congratulated as the first Mexican horror film with sound and i'd been looking forward to seeing it sine Indicator released it earlier this year.

In truth i was a little disappointed with it. It's not a long film, running only 70 minutes, but a good ten minutes of the time was taken up with a children's party and then a wedding. The party kicked in after the first couple of minutes so immediately takes you out of an interesting prologue where a man is killed on the street by what appears to be a wailing woman spirit. Whilst the wedding takes place approximately half way through and again removes any interest that may have built up as do the lengthy flashbacks meaning the bulk of the film is boring melodrama.

The film does have some plus points. The ghost is impressive, be it leaving bodies or briefly flying around whilst the idea of La Llorona kidnapping children and sacrificing them at an altar is impressively macabre. As is the black robed figure stalking the streets as well as the pleasingly Gothic sets and shadowy photography.

More on the lines of The Vampire Bat (1933) than any classic Universal monsters film, come January i'll give this another watch along with the Stephen Jones / Kim Newman commentary track and see what i think of it then.