One of the most iconic and widely known figures in Mexican folklore, La Llorona – and her terrible, eternal hunt for children’s souls to replace the ones she drowned in life – has fueled the nightmares of generations of kids and left her mark on a vast swath of Latin America. Her story has taken on a life of its own through centuries of tellings. And though it twists and turns along the way, in every form and any language, one thing remains constant: it still scares the living daylights out of anyone who hears it.
“When I first came to America, one of the first stories that people would come up and tell me was the legend of La Llorona,” says James Wan, producer of the upcoming “The Curse of La Llorona” from New Line Cinema and Warner Bros. Pictures.
“People see my movies and guess that I love ghost stories – and they’re right – but La Llorona is so much more,” continues Wan. “It hits you at the deepest levels of horror and touches on fears you didn’t even know you had. You understand why it’s such an integral part of people’s lives growing up. I just became fixated on this story. I thought, ‘What an amazing, scary figure to bring to the big screen.’”
