The legendary La Llorona finally has her own movie, scaring audiences in theaters this weekend. Making The Curse of La Llorona was scary for the cast. Everyone had a spooky story about something happening to them during or after filming the movie. Here are their stories.
Patricia Velasquez’s Story
“Sometimes we do this little exercise as actors where the day before, you write down on a piece of paper, you write this note right before you go to bed and you say, ‘Dear inner self. If it is your will, please allow me to see in a dream tonight the struggle of the character Patricia, in this case, so I can get closer to you.’
“And then you say with love and respect and you sign it and you put a date and you put a time. I went to bed, I’m asleep and then all of a sudden I hear a massive cry, scream. It was a scream with so much pain that it sounded like the most horrible thing I’ve ever heard.
“When I heard it, I woke up so quick and I screamed the name of my daughter. I went to her room and I hit myself on the door. Then I arrived to the room and I fell on my knee. It was the noise of falling on the wood that woke her up.
“And she goes, ‘Mama?’ She didn’t even [hear it]. Here I am on the floor kneeling and I’m like, ‘Are you cold?’ I didn’t know what to say. She’s like, ‘No, mama. Will you lay with me?’
So I go, I lay down with her and just as I lay down, I start feeling all the pain going in my knee. Then I started bleeding on my knee and I’m just waiting for her to fall asleep, holding the sheet out so it won’t get the stain of blood.
“And thinking about what just happened, but not really understanding oh my God, Patricia, you’re crazy. So I go to my room, I sit down, I started cleaning my knee. And then I look and I see the note.
“I thought oh my God, it was her. Oh my God, it was her. It was so crazy, so weird and so painful that I felt like it was her and I understood her struggle, her pain and then it’s almost like she made it organic.
“Then I went to work the next day and I felt number one, I understood what I needed to do as a mom who fights for her children. And number two, I understood how present she was, that this was no joke.”
Linda Cardellini’s Story
“When we were in Austin for SXSW, we were in this old hotel that they said was haunted. That’s where we had this reception. I went to go use the restroom and they put us in this suite that had this beautiful, old clawfoot tub. It was a giant bathroom and I was in there and the lights started flickering. I thought well, that’s weird.
“So I got out and there were several other people in it. I said, ‘Did the lights flicker in there for you?’ And they said, ‘No, the lights aren’t flickering at all.’ That’s weird, because there’s a huge bathtub scene so while I was in there I was sort of getting creeped out about the bathtub with the clawfoot.
“So later that night, we went ‘til two in the morning or something like that by the time we came home, and I couldn’t sleep. I was in my room and I heard this terrible slam of a door and I thought okay, I’m in a hotel but that sounded like my hotel room door.
“So I ran out to see if it was somebody who maybe had come into my room accidentally, maybe somebody who worked in the hotel. I looked out in the hall and there was nobody there.
“So I turn on all the lights. I didn’t want to go to sleep in the dark, and it was a sliding door, sort of like that barn door between the two rooms. So I left a sliver of it open so that the light could come in, because I was getting a little creeped out even though I don’t believe in that stuff. When I turned around, the door closed.
“My heart stopped and I thought okay, maybe the hotel is on an angle. I don’t know what is happening. So I opened all the doors and I sat in my bed and through the doors I could see the drapes and I thought I saw the drapes moving.
“So then I checked the room, I checked every inch of the room because I thought maybe there’s somebody in my room playing a joke on me. There was nobody there but I don’t really have those kinds of experiences and that night in Austin I had several. Isn’t that crazy?
“It wasn’t the haunted hotel. It was a different hotel, but she always says La Llorona follows you. So I kept hearing her in my mind thinking she’s following me.”
Raymond Cruz’s Story
“Mine is sick. I’m in the middle of a scene in the living room and I’m wearing a bracelet for protection. Coming into the movie, before I even did it, I went and I did research on everything that I could use to protect my own soul in the event that something attaches to you.
“Because when you’re dealing with the supernatural, you’re calling on dark entities to appear. I’m a big chicken. I had different crystals in every pocket. I had a bracelet that was made out of this really hard snow for protection against negative energy.
“Now, in the film, I have a bible in one hand and I have my hand up to the door and I’m saying a prayer. In the middle of the scene, the bracelet tore off my hand and all the beads went in every corner.
“[Director Michael] Chaves said, ‘What the hell was that? What the hell was that? Cut.’ We went and picked up the beads. We were on a wood floor in an old house. Three of the beads, this really hard stone, were split perfectly in half as if you’d cut them. So I picked them up. I put them in a bag. I still have them.
“I wasn’t touching anything. I was just reciting a prayer and we were in the middle of battle with La Llorona when that happened. And you can’t explain it. I took several of the beads outside on a concrete porch and I tried to break them. I slammed it, I had boots on and I could not break one. They were split perfectly in half.”
The Curse of La Llorona is now playing.