The Curse of La Llorona (2019)

It's 1973 and widowed social worker Anna (Linda Cardellini) is raising two kids of her own, Chris (Roman Christou) and Samantha (Jaynee-Lynne Kinchen) when she attracts the attention of child-murdering demon-ghost, La Llorona (the Wailing/Weeping Woman).

Having 'rescued' two children from what she believes is an abusive mother, Anna is horrified when the children turn up dead the next day, drowned in the city's river,

The grieving mother, Patricia Alvarez (Patricia Velasquez) babbles something about La Llorona, and when strange marks - akin to those found on the recently drowned children - appear on the arms of her own children, Anna starts to investigate.

Her local priest, Father Perez (Tony Amendola) advises her to look outside the church for a speedy resolution to her concerns, sending her to renegade faith healer, Rafael Olvera (Raymond Cruz).

Ultimately, The Curse of La Llorona is a very pedestrian action-horror, hamstrung by a disappointingly generic "demonic ghost" with powers that range from near-omnipotence to total impotence, largely depending on the demands of the script. Sometimes she can fly, sometimes she can't, sometimes she can magically appear in a room, sometimes she can't etc

Unfortunately, the film quickly writes itself into a corner by focusing  La Llorona on Anna's family so early on, as then there's no one outside of a small circle of characters who can be drawn in and you know the ghost isn't going to kill Anna or her kids - certainly not before the finale anyway.

Then we're just left with a lot of threatening gestures, but no real threat. Admittedly, some of La Llorona's appearances are rather well thought-out (such as when she becomes visible through Sam's umbrella), but there's never any sense of verisimilitude to her ghostly appearances.

It's difficult to say too much else about The Curse of La Llorona because it's so formulaic and mediocre. We've all seen worse and we've all seen better.

Coming in at just over 90 minutes, with a bit of trimming this could easily have been reworked into a solid episode of Supernatural - as Olvera, and his clever bag of 'anti-evil spirits' tricks (love the bit with the eggs), fills the role we're used to seeing Sam and Dean Winchester take in similar yarns.

Except, Supernatural is way better at defining what its paranormal antagonists can and can't do.

Through Father Perez, who also appeared in Annabelle, The Curse of La Llorona has its marketing connection to The Conjuring Universe, but, as yet, there's nothing deeper. Certainly nothing to tie this film to The Warrens.

Great play is made in the film's introductory scenes about Anna's encounter taking place exactly 300 years after the creation of the ghost, but then this is never addressed again.

Given that La Llorona is a genuine Latin American folktale, it's a shame that it was treated so generically.

Maybe, like the demon doll Annabelle herself, the cinematic La Llorona will be redeemed in a future film. Or perhaps we'll never return this haunted spin-off cul-de-sac.

Annabelle Comes Home (2019)

Annabelle Comes Home is a masterclass in teen horror movie making.

While, on one hand, not much scarier than the best episodes of Supernatural, nor even as gory, on the other writer/director Gary Dauberman concentrated on escalating tension, menace, and atmosphere.

You always suspected a jump scare was coming, but, in truth, there were only a couple in the film, the majority were red herrings, but you never know which were which until the final 'boo!'.

The film opens with the backstory of how Annabelle came into the possession of The Conjuring's protagonists, Lorraine and Ed Warren (Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson) and a succinct explanation of the doll's powers (she isn't possessed, as demons don't possess objects, instead she acts as a beacon and a conduit for dark forces).

Then the story jumps forward a year, to 1972, and Annabelle is safely squirrelled away in the Warrens' locked room of evil artifacts.

The Warrens are heading out on another case, leaving their young daughter Judy (Mckenna Grace) in the care of Brady Bunch-like babysitter Mary Ellen (Madison Iseman).

At first I felt a bit cheated when I realised that the Warrens themselves would just be bookending the story of Annabelle Comes Home, but as it turns out I should have trusted Gary Dauberman to know what he was doing.

Having learned what the Warrens do for a living, Mary Ellen's best friend, Daniela Rios (Katie Sarife) drops in to surreptitiously check out the "room of cursed objects".

She is wracked with guilt over the recent death of her father, and is hoping to find a way to contact his spirit.

Instead, she is tricked into releasing Annabelle, who, in turn, unleashes as many of the trapped entities in the Warrens' secure room as she can.

The variety of spooky objects that come into play reminded me of a cross between the Friday the 13th TV series (nothing to do with Jason Voorhees) and the wonderful Warehouse 13, with the predictive television set being a particular visual highlight.

The climax, which draws in May Ellen's would-be boyfriend, Bob Palmeri (Michael Cimino), is a funfair thrill ride of spooks, monsters, and mind-trickery as a demon uses Annabelle to try and steal one of the young women's souls.

Ultimately, Annabelle Comes Home is Buffy The Vampire Slayer level teen drama and urban fantasy scares, but on a bigger budget, with enough atmosphere and misdirection to keep the audience on the edge of its seat throughout.

As always with this franchise, the film capitalises on its period setting to heighten the verisimilitude, making the jeopardy and threat wholly convincing for both the audience and the teenagers trapped inside the haunted house.

Balancing out the jump scares, there's also some laugh out loud moments, and Dauberman has a great knack of making full use of the screen, so you always have to keep half-an-eye on what's going on in the background.

Beyond question, Annabelle Comes Home is delightfully creepy and simultaneously thrilling and unnerving, making it one of my favourite entries in the ever-expanding Conjuring Universe.

While Universal may have failed to launch its Dark Universe, reinventing their classic characters for 21st Century audiences, Warner Bros and New Line Cinema were quietly building an impressive, interconnected, universe around the mythology of The Conjuring movies.

They're not all hits, but the winners outweigh the duds. Long may it last.

The Conjuring 2 (2016)

One of the things I appreciated about The Conjuring is that it relies almost as much on building atmosphere and tension as it does on cheap jump scares.

And The Conjuring 2 sticks to that formula very successfully.

Even with its two hour and 14 minute duration (about a half hour longer than the original) it surprisingly never outstays its welcome.

And is, perhaps, even better than the first movie as it's more willing to embrace its cinematic nature and have fun with what that offers.

By shoehorning the '70s demonologist Warrens into a "real life" hoax that, at best, they were only actually peripherally involved with, has allowed director James Wan and his co-writers Chad Hayes, Carey W. Hayes, and David Leslie Johnson, to go 'full Hollywood' on this one.

They even throw in some demonic entities of their own creation that proved to be suitable for spinning-off into their own movies (e.g. The Nun) as The Conjuring Universe expanded.

While simultaneously focusing on a family in Enfield, London, troubled by an entity that has possessed the youngest daughter, Janet (Madison Wolfe), The Conjuring 2 also follows would-be ghostbusters Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) and Ed Warren (Patrick Wilson) as they come off the back of investigating the legendary Amityville haunting (which introduces the figure of The Nun, portrayed by Bonnie Aarons, into the movie's mythology).

A vision of Ed's impending death convinces Lorraine that they should give up this life of theirs, and they appear to be entertaining that thought until they're called in by the Catholic church to investigate the haunting in Enfield.

Dipping into the same catalogue of clichés as The Conjuring, The Conjuring 2 is essentially telling a very, very, very similar - if not identical story - with spirits targeting children, sleepwalking, creaking doors, inanimate objects moving and behaving strangely, thumping and banging sounds, mysterious injuries, spooky images in reflective surfaces etc

However, there's an extra layer to this sequel that adds a depth to the simplistic storytelling, spinning a visually-engaging demon-fighting story out of a piece of fiction that has been sold as fact to gullible souls.

Having that element of "based on a true story" (even if that so-called true story was make-believe) certainly adds a frisson of extra chills to The Conjuring films, but there's also no sense that the filmmakers feel bound by this here as it goes way-beyond the documented allegations, almost into Poltergeist territory.

Ultimately, if anything, like the original movie, this portrayal of the Warrens as 'soldiers of God' reminds me more of the Winchester family in Supernatural than anything else.

But that's not a bad thing. I'm still enjoying Supernatural after 13 seasons, I'm positive I could enjoy plenty more on-screen adventures for the Warrens.

The Conjuring (2013)

As promised, I have begun my trawl through the murky world of The Conjuring Universe, kicking off with the titular movie that started it all back in 2013.

Showcasing what it is claimed to be the most shocking case investigated by professional 'demonologists' Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) and Ed Warren (Patrick Wilson), The Conjuring focuses primarily on a working class family, the Perrons, who invest all their money in a dream house in the country only to find they are sharing it with a malevolent demonic entity.

It's all very formulaic stuff (supernatural shit happens to family, family suffers, family calls in experts, supernatural shit escalates, experts drive it out at the last moment) that we've seen a million times before, from The Haunting to Poltergeist and beyond.

The set-up is little different to the many variations on the tired Amityville story and any number of other 'haunted house' tales that don't make bogus claims of being based on "real events".

That said, The Conjuring is very well made (and gets very LOUD during it climactic demonic confrontation), has charismatic leads in Wilson and Bates Motel's Farmiga, and is already laying the groundwork for a wider "universe" by the very nature of its main characters having a plentiful casebook of adventures to explore.

Being set in the '70s gives The Conjuring a nice period feel as well, and the roleplayers among us appreciate the Warrens methodical approach to their job, coming as it does straight out of the Call Of Cthulhu playbook.

But what really makes this an interesting movie is the sequence where the demonic force the Warrens are facing in the Perron's house uses a connection to Lorraine to 'activate' a totally unrelated entity back in the Warren's home - in their room of artefacts - the infamous Annabelle doll (whose story helps establish the Warren's bona fides at the start of The Conjuring).

In truth, this sub-plot has almost no bearing whatsoever on the main narrative, but provides a unique distraction the like of which I don't recall seeing in previous genre pieces of this ilk.

While the real Warrens were charlatans and con artists (or worst), the fictional Ed and Lorraine, because they exist in a cinematic universe where demons, ghosts, black magic etc are real, are true defenders of humanity worthy of joining the ranks of comic books' John Constantine and TV's Winchester brothers (from Supernatural).

I'd give The Conjuring a solid seven out of ten. It's not original by any stretch of the imagination, but it has some interesting moments, and by taking seriously the fantastical fabrications of the Warrens director James 'Aquaman' Wan and writers Chad Hayes and Carey W Hayes have tapped into a rich seam of stories and created an intriguing cinematic world that has the legs to expand beyond a single movie.

Supernatural Rises From The Grave As A Dynamite Comic

Main cover art for issue one by Clayton Crain

Five years after the final episode of Supernatural's 15th season, the popular monster-hunting TV show returns in October... as a new comic book series from Dynamite.

With its initial storyline set between the events of seasons one and two, Supernatural will be written by Greg Pak, with Eder Messias on art detail.

From Dynamite's promotional blurb:

The brothers Winchester return! Get ready to hit the road again with Dean and Sam as they prowl the highways and byways of small-town America in search of demonic wrongdoing to put right!

Set between the foundational first and second seasons of the landmark television series, this brand-new title from acclaimed author Greg Pak (Darth Vader) and preternaturally gifted artist Eder Messias (Sam Wilson: Captain America) brings readers back to where the dark magic first began - and reveals a disturbing new threat that the bickering brothers will have to face before they can return to hunting down the demon who killed their mother.

In this first issue, the monster hunters must uncover the entity responsible for a series of mysterious fires in a decaying rust belt town - attacks that begin with a Windler Industries factory burning down, and then escalate to several Windler employees themselves going up in flames.

But finding the malevolent force behind the otherworldly arsons may not be as straightforward as it might seem - especially once the suspiciously well-prepared CEO Steff Windler gets personally involved! 

Variant cover art for issue one by David Cousins

Variant cover art for issue one by Eder Messias

Cast photo variant cover for issue one

As well as a number of licensed spin-off novels and an excellent selection of "in-universe" guides to the show's world, long-running horror show Supernatural (2005-2020) earned itself a handful of comic book miniseries over the years and a wonderful RPG that, sadly, didn't gain the traction it deserved.

However, when the 13-episode Winchesters prequel series also failed to set the world alight (in 2022) in quite the same way as the original show had done I thought that was the last gasp for this franchise.

Let's hope there are enough die hard - or potentially returning - Supernatural fans to breathe life into this new comic book series and reignite the thrill of those early years of the show.

Friday The 13th (2009)

This new telling of the story of Jason Voorhees - the indestructible, hockey-masked slayer - begins by subverting the twist ending of the original.

This version makes it clear in the opening flashback that it was Jason's mother who killed the camp counsellors because she thought they had let her deformed son drown in Crystal Lake.

But Jason had survived and made it back in time to see his own mother beheaded before his eyes by the last survivor.

The film then jumps to the present day and a bunch of potheads are going camping in the woods, near Crystal Lake, looking for a legendary field of wild weed... instead they are ambushed by the adult Jason (Derek Mears), who still inhabits the derelict summer camp.

All this in the 25-minutes before the title screen!

Six weeks later and another bunch of obnoxious college students, headed by chief douche bag Trent (Travis Van Winkle), have come to stay at a lodge owned by Travis' parents on the far side of the lake.

Meanwhile, Clay (Supernatural's Jared Padalecki) is in the area looking for his missing sister, Whitney (Amanda Righetti), one of the earlier band of delinquents, and getting nowhere with the unhelpful locals.

Little does he realise that Jason has actually kept her alive because she bears a passing resemblance to his dead mother.

There's even an underlying suggestion that the locals are somehow complicit in Jason's murders (the old woman who says: "He just wants to be left alone" and the total lack of follow-up by the authorities when one victim is impaled on the back of a passing pick-up truck), but this is never explored - to the detriment of originality in this movie.

Trent and his cohorts quickly discover the area's brutal secret though, and Clay is drawn into their nightmare as he tries to rescue his sister from the clutches of the iconic, unstoppable serial killer.

Directed by Marcus Nispel (who also helmed the far superior remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 2003; not that the original needed remaking), Friday The 13th is very "by-the-numbers" with the requisite amount of female nudity and violent deaths, while, sadly, adding nothing new to the mix.

Where Nispel's Texas Chainsaw Massacre expanded on the characters of the original film and added new layers of subtext, Friday The 13th is just a re-imagining of the old story in a new location, with new disposable victims.

Perhaps we've been spoiled by such imaginative horrors as the Final Destination franchise, but even Jason's most creative attacks are actually quite mundane and there is certainly more luck than judgement involved in many of his killings.

The extended cut DVD gives us 101 minutes of mindless, low-brow entertainment, but totally lacking in lasting impact.

All the characters, even Clay and Whitney, are two-dimensional ciphers that we never get to really know - or care for - and, to be honest, most of the victims pretty much deserve what they get from Jason.

It isn't even made clear why, at the end, having defeated Jason (as the film structure dictated they would), Clay and Whitney roll his body into the lake rather than calling the police (as any sensible, right-thinking person would do), except that it serves the plotline and thus leaves the door open for a (wishful-thinking) sequel.

Friday The 13th is good for what it is: an urban myth-style retelling of a well-known tale for a generation that might only have known of the original second or third hand.

I still would have preferred a sequel to Jason X than this trite reboot, but perhaps I was just too sober (and too old) to fully appreciate the movie's nuances?

The Salvation (2014)

No genre quite embraces the revenge story like westerns.

Danish immigrant Jon Jensen (Mads 'Hannibal' Mikkelsen) has worked for seven years preparing his farm and raising the funds to ship his wife and child over from the motherland.

Unfortunately, on the day they arrive, and the family is traveling to Jon's home - that he shares with his laid-back brother Peter (Mikael Persbrandt), just outside the town of Black Creek - they end up sharing a stage coach with a couple of ne'er-do-wells with tragic consequences.

Jon, an ex-solider like his brother, quickly exacts revenge, but that's only the beginning of his troubles.

One of the men he kills (Once Upon A Time's Michael Raymond-James) happens to be the brother of the irredeemably loathsome land baron Colonel Henry Delarue (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, of Watchmen and Supernatural fame), an unbalanced ex-Indian killer, with ambitions to take over Black Creek.

Delarue, a gonzo pantomime villain of an antagonist, wants to buy up the town because of the oil beneath it that his paymasters have their beady eyes on.

He also lusts after his brother's mute wife, Madelaine (Penny Dreadful's Eva Green), and very quickly takes advantage of her loss.

Venting his anger on the townsfolk of Black Creek - which includes undertaker-mayor Nathan Keane (Jonathan Pryce) and sheriff-priest Mallick (Primeval's Douglas Henshall) - Delarue demands the capture of his brother's killer and it isn't long before the cowed inhabitants point the finger at Jon.

Despite aspiring to be the new Unforgiven, The Salvation is more spaghetti western in its execution (just check out the number of quirky, gimmicky deaths in the third act, for instance) with a script - from director Kristian Levring and co-writer Anders Thomas Jensen - that's not afraid to corral a few clichés along the way.

Eva Green's character, in particular, gets the short end of the stick, being little more than a trophy to be 'won' and whose development revolves around successive brutalisation until she is finally driven to fight back.

Given that Jon would have only known her as Delarue's sister-in-law and accountant, there's no real logic for why Jon saves her, mid-battle, from Delarue's lieutenant, The Corsican (ex-footballer Eric Cantona), except for the fact that she's Eva Green!

Shot in South Africa, The Salvation looks gorgeous, has great pacing and an ice cool central performance from Mads Mikklelsen - who really can do no wrong.

Plot wobbles and misogyny aside, The Salvation stands as a stylish, old school, western revenge movie.