The TSL Horror Grindhouse: Amityville La Llorna (dir by Jamie Grefe)

In 2025’s Amityville La Llorona, a couple (played by director Jamie Grefe and Sloane Tower) move into a house and spend the entire time arguing about every little thing. Eventually, the husband has visions of a mysterious woman (Skya Theobold) and a strange figure who keeps shouting, “Mama! Mama!” The film is only 63 minutes. Unfortunately, the dialogue is largely improvised and it takes forever for anything to actually happen in the movie. I felt every one of those 63 minutes.

Since there’s really not a helluva lot to say about the film, let’s talk about La Llorona.

The legend of La Llorona is a well-known one in Mexico and the southwestern half of the United States. It’s a story that I was told by both my mom and my aunts and, as a result, I never went off with a stranger while I was growing up. Of course, I also had some pretty intense nightmares but that’s kind of the point. If someone tells you the story of La Llorona and you don’t end up having a nightmare about being drowned by a weeping woman, they didn’t tell the story correctly.

La Llorona was originally named Maria. She lived, in a rural village, with her family and she was famous for both her beauty and her virtue. When a wealthy nobleman saw her and immediately proposed to her, Maria accepted. However, the nobleman’s father was upset that his son was marrying into a poor family and he refused to accept Maria as his daughter-in-law. Maria and her husband ended up having two sons and living in a house by the river. Maria’s husband doted on their sons but he ignored her and eventually, Maria learned that he was having an affair.

In a fit of blind rage, Maria drowned her children in the river. After realizing what she had done, Maria died of grief. However, when she arrived at the gates of Heaven, she was asked why her children were not with her. When Maria explained that she had lost them, she was told that she would not be allowed to enter Heaven until she found them. Now, known as La Llorona (or “the weeping woman”), she wanders the Earth, crying and looking for her children.

Where does one find La Llorona? It depends on who is telling the story. Some stories say that you’ll only see her near a body of water. My mom used to tell me that La Llorona could be anywhere, including under my bed or in the bedroom closet. Regardless of where you might find her, La Llorona is always wearing her wedding dress and she’s always sobbing. Approach her and she’ll grab you and either kidnap you or drown you, all the while begging for forgiveness. Many have seen La Llorona but few have survived to tell the story.

“And that is why we do not talk to strangers,” my mother would say while I looked out the bedroom window, searching for the sight of La Llorona walking through the Texas night.

Though Skya Theobold’s character is credited as being La Llorona in Amityville La Llorana, she doesn’t have much in common with the true La Llorona. Then again, this film also has nothing to do with any of the previous Amityville films. Amityville, as either a town or franchise, is never mentioned in this film. Normally, I’m willing to cut an exploitation film a little bit of slack when it comes to having a misleading title. Usually, that’s just a part of the game. In this case, though, it just serves to remind me of how cool a film about the real La Llorona visiting the real Amityville house would have been.

As I mentioned earlier, the dialogue in this film appears to have been improvised. One of the unfortunate things about improv is that everyone thinks that can they do it. They think that as long as they’re given a scene to play, they’ll be able to come up with appropriately compelling dialogue. This film proves that is not always the case. As I watched Amityville La Llorona, I found myself hoping that Michael Scott would kick open a door and shout, “MICHAEL SCARN, FBI!”

Michael Scarn in Amityville. Now that would be a movie!