This’ll give the weeping lady something to cry about!
Main Cast: Will Morales, Mary Sanchez
Director: Terrence Williams
Miguel has been hired by the wealthy Estevan to find and bring home his runaway daughter, Luciana. But on the way back, Miguel swerves to avoid a little boy who’s run in front of his car, crashes, and when he comes to, Luciana is gone.
Miguel makes his way to Estevan’s inn where he gets a room for the night while he waits for his boss’s return. As the night unfolds, however, Miguel is drawn deeper and deeper into a world of Mexican legends, betrayal, sacrifice, and most important, Benjamin Franklin!
In a journal Estevan has left for our hero, we learn that Luciana is an adopted daughter, found by the side of the river that runs just outside the inn, and that her real mother, the Weeping Lady, drowned her children in a fit of madness when her husband left her for someone else. Realizing what she’d done, La Llorona threw herself into the river and ever since then her spirit has been seen wandering the banks in search of her lost children. She’s coming for Estevan and his family, unless Miguel carries out Estevan’s plan and poisons the girl. Only Luciana’s death can save them. In return, Estevan’s other daughter, Ann Marie, has been given a large sum of money which she and Miguel will use to run away together.
Well, when you put it like that, it doesn’t sound so bad. But don’t let the hype fool you. THE RIVER: THE LEGEND OF LA LLORONA (2006) is cheap and badly executed.
There’s a lot to be said for trick photography and the magic that can be done onscreen by using certain angles and whatnot. Writer, producer, director Terrence Williams is not a master of these techniques. For proof, just look around at Estevan’s…inn. You know, the characters can call it an inn all they want. Miguel can ask for a room. He can be shown to a room. The characters can even refer to something happening upstairs. But three seconds on this set and you’ll see without a doubt, this isn’t an inn in some small town as the dialogue would lead you to believe. It’s just another 3-bedroom 1-bath in the hood. I mean, if nothing else, the security door and the bars on the windows kind of give it away.
No offense to Terrence Williams, but you’re not THAT sly, dude. I don’t know what look he was going for in dressing this set, but what he got was the same as if he’d just walked into his neighbor’s house and started filming. There’s not one frame of this movie that says to me we’re in an inn in a small town along a river. No, we’re in the middle of a city neighborhood shooting a movie in the house from FRIDAY. Simple as that.
Will Morales as Miguel stumbles along, trying to spit out his dialogue, while adding enough inflection to convince the audience he means it, chambering rounds in what is obviously a plastic gun, and looking the part of tortured anti-hero. In fact, there was exactly one scene in this entire movie where I was convinced Morales was serious: when Miguel found Ann Marie’s money stash under the bed and was celebrating his newfound wealth.
Unfortunately, Morales was also the best actor in the movie. Mary Sanchez does double duty as Ann Marie and the Weeping Lady, and sucks equally in both roles. At times, I actually felt sorry for the girl in her Weeping Lady garb. Denise Gossett played Mary, Estevan’s wife, and holy sweet fancy Moses. Her “why have you forsaken me” was downright painful.
Given the revelation that comes near the movie’s climax, I can see that Williams had a good idea here, that THE RIVER: THE LEGEND OF LA LLORONA had the makings of a pretty decent movie. The problem had to have been the budget. Trying to pass off this house as a large inn instead of finding an actual location was a failure. Hiring what had to have been either friends and/or the cheapest actors they could find was a failure. Shooting on video was a failure (does anything in the world look as cheap and homemade as a movie shot on video?). The promise was there, but for whatever reason, it doesn’t seem Williams spent the money to do it right, which is a shame because THE RIVER: THE LEGEND OF LA LLORONA had potential to be something better than what it is.
Seeing the good movie under that veneer of low-budget, I wanted to like this movie despite its failings. But they were just a little too overpowering. Bad lighting, horrible sound, and a bunch of people standing around reciting words that are supposed to be dialogue makes for 73 minutes of ARGH!!!!!
C. Dennis Moore is the author of over 60 published short stories and novellas in the speculative fiction genre. Most recent appearances are in the Dark Highlands 2, What Fears Become, Dead Bait 3 and Dark Highways anthologies. His novels are Revelations, and the Angel Hill stories, The Man in the Window, The Third Floor, and The Flip.
Leave a Reply