“The Curse of La Llorona” (2019) and the case against CGI horror
Is rated “R” but I can’t think why, as it is almost bloodless, and fits right into the “PG-13” “jump scare” horror vein. That’s not necessarily bad news, because except for a couple of CGI-heavy scenes, it really is a worthy addition to the “Conjuring” universe.
Basically, we have a Child Protective Services caseworker Anna (Linda Cardellini) whose efforts to help a troubled family brings her to the attention of a fabled Mexican ghost, the “Weeping Lady” La Llorona. And then, as they say, the fun begins. I found it easy to surrender to, and if there are a couple of little problems with flow (a couple of characters seem to pop in and out during the climax in ways that pulled me out of the story a bit) the overall mood worked, and the jump-scares seemed mostly appropriate in context. Her endangered children Chris and Sam are convincing, and the ghost herself has some pretty vile motivations. If you liked the other ones, you’ll probably dig this one.
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I wanted to think about that CGI sequence. I’ve noticed that CGI works best in horror films when it is indistinguishable from practical effects. Back when Ray Harryhausen ruled the roost, his stop-motion monsters were absolutely wonderful, like no other sort of visual magic, but they were clearly just that, “magic.” His best movies were pure fantasy: Jason and the Argonauts, Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, and so forth. Forays into science fiction like “Twenty Million Miles To Earth,” “Earth Versus the Flying Saucer” and “First Men in the Moon” are fun, but rarely seen any more. When watching his work, you really felt you were seeing something uncanny, and you were…the sight of a single brilliant man’s work in some cloistered studio (I’m sure he had assistants, but only the terrific Jim Danforth ever really got credit, on “Clash of the Titans” when Ray ran out of time to execute the Pegasus). Films that pretty much ape Ray’s work today (“Wrath of the Titans”) seem somehow unable to capture that sense of wonder. As you watch the closing credits roll, and see the endless list of CGI technicians who created the bestiary, it is kind of odd. Technically they are smoother and more varied in action. But…the creatures have no personality. Watching the skeleton sequence in “Jason” is watching an absolute master juggling a half-dozen plates at the same time, in a feat of skill, art, and concentration that is mind-boggling. A comparable CGI sequence is just watching a group of technicians getting paid by the hour.
But I digress.
I don’t mind CGI at all in fantasy adventure films like superhero movies or “Lord of the Rings” type stories. But I’ve noticed that if you want to trigger a “fear” response in me, I HAVE to believe that there is actually something happening live, on set, in relation to the actors. The slightest sense that this is “movie magic” and that “its only a movie. It’s only a movie” response kicks in.
This might be something similar to the way fans freaked out at “Die Another Day” when Bond slipped into CGI territory as 007 wind-surfed down a collapsing glacier. That franchise is based largely on live stunts: the audience has to BELIEVE that someone could actually DO that. That a real human being was at risk, even if it is Roger Moore, widely considered the softest and least physically convincing Bond (despite the fact that he apparently kicked Lee Marvin’s ass on the set of “Shout at the Devil”, according to Marvin’s autobiography. And yeah, Marvin was quite surprised, too).
The apex of this might well be the single greatest stunt ever filmed, the parachute BASE-jump in the beginning of “The Spy Who Loved Me” (1977)(performed by maniac Rick Sylvester. Note that it almost killed him: the ski he kicks off almost collapsed his chute! Needless to say, they only filmed this once, with multiple cameras).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw77HagbeHM
Anyway, back to horror. Jordan Peele has been quoted as saying horror is all “camera angles and music” and he should know. But we also have to believe in the characters, or we won’t care. Believe in a palpable threat, or what difference does it make? Shadows are better than bright light, as it is good to force the audience’s sense to strain: we are afraid of what we cannot quite perceive or comprehend.
The Grandmaster himself, Stephen King, says that the reason H.P. Lovecraft wouldn’t describe his eldritch horrors (“and there stood in the doorway a thing which, were I to describe it, would blast your soul…”) is not that language really fails, but that if you describe something so that the mind can encompass it, our minds immediately reduce it to a symbol, and the result is a sense of the mundane.
“And there stood in the door…a six foot cockroach!” Eek! Oh, well…at least it wasn’t a ten foot cockroach…
That was really another aside. Free associating this morning. Anyway, “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (1974) triggers a phenomenal fear response if you associate with the characters and surrender to the world. It is almost beyond endurance, given those first two conditions. “Who will survive, and what will be left of them?” asked the original ad, and every frame of that movie is filled with an almost documentary-level griminess, enhanced by the claim that it was based on a true story. Well, about as much as “Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter” is.
It isn’t surprising that the actors reported feeling genuinely uneasy while making it.
How about another film with the same level of fear? “Alien” (1979) manages it. . And its not surprising that legend says writer Dan O’Bannon took Ridley Scott to see “Chainsaw” to show him what horror REALLY is. And the sense that there was something actually on the set for Veronica Cartwright to scream at, something really crouching in the shadows for Tom Skerritt to confront in the tunnels, is part of the reason that movie is totally badass.
“Night of the Living Dead” is much the same, and it feels to me that zombie films that focus on CGI creatures rather than the practical brainchildren of Tom Savini or Greg Nicotero are just…video game b.s. You laugh at them. On some level, you KNOW that those actors are looking at an orange ball on a stick, rather than the result of some human being sculpting another human being into something dreadful.
It’s a little like CGI car chases. “Along Came A Spider” (2001) might have been the first movie where I knew I was watching a CGI car smack-up, and it popped me into the “fantasy” category, and colored the entire rest of the film. I can know that wasn’t “poor old Roger” (as the stuntmen called him behind his back) skiing off that mountain in “Spy Who Loved Me”, but SOMEONE was. And damn, that looks terrifying. And therefore exciting.
I might know that no real aliens exist, no real zombies or werewolves, but who thinks the CGI FX in “American Werewolf in Paris” (1997) are a flea on an elephant’s butt compared to Rick Baker’s phenomenal practical work in “American Werewolf in London” (1981)?
Something…looks wrong. It isn’t REAL. So there is nothing to fear. All you need do is sit back, munch popcorn, and enjoy the special effects.
Maybe it’s the “uncanny valley” thing, related to physics: the real world and the calculated math world overlap, but aren’t precisely the same. And even if your conscious mind can’t be sure which is which, I think the unconscious can. And if you ratchet the fear up, if you put an empathizable character in peril, you don’t want to see something terrible happen to them, and search for a way to disbelieve (by the way, I have always had the sense that when critics or audiences are faced by something that violates their emotional comfort zone, they look for ways to disbelieve the entire film on narrative or technical grounds…and there is ALWAYS a thread to pull. Always. When that critic, or audience member, gives you that “I didn’t believe…” more often with a film that is culturally vexing, you might want to factor this in and ask it they seemed to be seeking an emotional escape hatch).
Anyway…could Harryhausen’s little stop-motion creatures be more endearing than their CGI cousins because, on some level, we sense that there is something real, even if that Kraken is only two feet tall? Do we love Willis O’Brian’s “Kong” not in spite of the ruffling of his fur (caused by finger placement during manipulation) but BECAUSE of it? Because on some level we feel the presence of a living hand, touching a physical thing, rather than crews of digital laborers in a half-dozen different countries executing some stranger’s equations on a computer screen? I don’t know, but such a romantic notion is tempting.
But I DO know that a final sequence in “La Llorona”, following what were doubtless a ton of other CGI that could arguably masquerade as in-camera or other optical effects, was clearly constructed from pixels rather than thread and plaster and executed with wires and on-set ingenuity. And what should have been a moment of high triumph or horror became instead the dreaded:
“Nice FX there.”
That’s allowable in pure adventure fantasy. But it is the death of horror. I’d say that “La Llorona” skates past that thin ice IF you empathize with the characters, and IF your mind isn’t seeking an escape hatch. T and I liked it fine. But I’d rather that climax had been kinda low rent.
Just weird like that, I guess.
Namaste
Steve