Sometimes when there is nothing else to watch, a good old fashioned ghost story can fill that need and The Curse of the Crying Woman is a great little tale of that very such thing.  Originally known as La maldición de la Llorona, the film sees a niece come home only to find that her aunt has something planned for her and it involves witchcraft and the resurrection of a long dead woman.  But Amelia’s aunt Selma was not counting on the fact that her niece would come back married and she knows that it is going to complicate things.  There is also the small matter of Selma’s long-believed dead husband, who is currently locked up within the house and is causing no end of trouble himself.  How can so many things go wrong and get in the way of a little conjuring?

Overall the movie works really well and the director Rafael Baledón has seen to it that it does.  Taking place in a dilapidated old mansion with some beautiful shots from cinematographer José Ortiz Ramos to really accentuate the age and rundown nature of the place, it sets a tone for the film that is very atmospheric and haunting.  Not a bad thing for a movie about ghosts and witchcraft.  The special effects are also surprisingly good and very efficient at conveying the sense of dread and horror of what is happening in the house to the viewer.  The scariest thing in the whole movie has to be the black contacts used by Rita Macedo who plays Selma.  She looks as if she has dead, vacant doll eyes and looking at them is a more frightening prospect than raising some long dead demoness.  It is hard to imagine that a simple pair of contacts could be so frightening and yet they are.  Even Macedo without her scary eyes is a somewhat intimidating woman, strong and forceful and not someone you want to anger.

Standing opposite Macedo is Rosa Arenas who plays Amelia and Abel Salazar as Amelia’s husband Jaime.  Amelia is young and impressionable but she knows that she does not want anything to do with what her aunt Selma is talking about, but fate is fate and it will be hard to avoid it when the time comes.  Jaime, her husband, is ridiculous and quite useless.  He is like a bumbling oaf, only without the bumbling, or at least not too much of it.  He almost seems to be the comedic relief except he was probably not meant to be so.  The thing about him that is most ludicrous is the fact that he cannot go anywhere without a cigar in hand.  It looks silly beyond measure and there are times when you think to yourself ‘still?’  Thankfully Macedo and Arenas more than make up for the weak link in the cast.

The only really bad thing that can be said about the film is that there were certain moments where it dragged and if Baledón could have trimmed the movie a little here and there, it would have made the film all the better for it.  As it is, The Curse of the Crying Woman is a wonderful little chiller, sure to at least make you wince a couple of times when you see Macedo and her dead, black eyes.

3.5 out of 5