Leave it to Hollywood to tuen a fascinating cultural legend into a subpar throwaway movie. “The Curse of La Llorona” is perhaps one of the most shameless cash grabs to come out of “The Conjuring” movie universe.

The one and only thing the movie gets right is the origin story of the spirit of La Llorona, also known as the Weeping Woman. It’s a Mexican folk tale that tells of a woman who drowned her children because of her husband’s infidelity and now walks the Earth searching for other children to replace them in the afterlife.

Aside from that, there isn’t a single redeemable quality about this movie, especially if you’ve seen any of the “Conjuring” movies and the many not-so-subtle rip-offs. It follows a single mother (Linda Cardellini, who deserves much better work than this) and her children who are stalked by the spirit of the Weeping Woman. However, there is little to no dialogue for the child actors (Roman Christou and Jaynee-Lynne Kinchen) to really make an impact, or let the audience grow attached to them to fear for their fates.

Character development aside from that is relegated to expositional dialogue. Cardellini’s character is a widow, and apart from one attempt at a heartfelt scene of grieving, the film never allows time or anything beyond a few bits of dialogue to relay that or even linger on it, so it just becomes sort of a mentioned detail. The script is noticeably awful, with such generic and uninspired dialogue that even looking for unintentional laughs is impossible.

“La Llorona” relies on so many tropes of prior and similar movies that it becomes annoying how shamelessly it copies everything ever done in the same genre. All the while it slaps a metaphorical “Conjuring” sticker on the film by having a single character mention having come across the Annabelle doll. That’s the film’s only link to the other films, and it is such visible and shameless branding you may want to gag.

The ghost in the mirror, the supernatural entity dragging someone away, the spirit in the bathroom, the shaman and/or priest who shows up to help battle the demon, the ghost hiding in billowing sheets and/or on the ceiling, the ghost creature with creepy colored eyes: La Llorona herself is so predictable you’d wonder how foolish someone has to be to fall for her tricks, even the children. The creature/spirit is also shown so many times howling right on at the screen that she becomes an obnoxious bore rather than anything horrific halfway through the film.

The scares have all been seen here before if you’ve watched “The Conjuring” 1 or 2, the “Insidious” films, “The Nun,” “Annabelle” 1 or 2, “Ouija,” the “Paranormal Activity” series and so on and so on. Demonic entity/possession movies have become what zombies and vampires went through – throwaway viewing that is so rinse-and-repeat that you can’t even call them brainless popcorn movies anymore. The one exception to this is “Hereditary,” whose setup, premise and third act are so well done, and out of left field, it’s hard not to be at least shocked by the end of that film.

This is especially egregious after “Pet Sematary” and “Us” weeks prior, which both effectively built a family dynamic for the audience to grow attached to while not relying on too many disposable jump scares.

But perhaps the strangest part of it all is how the movie barely pays any homage or even bothers to anchor itself in the Mexican culture it originated from. La Llorona has always been Mexican folklore through and through, and while the story of the spirit and a couple of very brief shots emphasize its cultural origin, this is an afterthought at best — and a massive failure considering how part of the mystique of it comes from of its prominence in the region it hails from.

You don’t need to see this movie at all, and it can’t be recommended especially after the two great creepy-crawly films we’ve gotten so far this year. Hold out that extra week and save your money to see “Avengers: Endgame” twice.

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“The Curse of La Llorona” is currently playing at the Riverside Cinemas, 1017 S. Boone St. in Aberdeen.

George Haerle holds a bachelor’s degree in creative writing for media and lives in Cosmopolis.