Going into The Cry I had no idea about the folk legend of La Llorona. Originating mostly from Mexico, it's a tale of a woman who finds out her husband has been cheating on her and decides to drown their children for revenge. After realizing what she has done and letting out a blood-curdling scream she gets cursed to forever wander bodies of water searching for her children. Through the years it has been used to scare youngsters into behaving with threats that "La Llorona is coming to get you." It's an intriguing basis for a horror flick that sadly never delivers. Given that director Bernadine Santistevan spent five years researching the topic perhaps she'd of been better served to have channelled her energies into a documentary rather than this (at times) misguided genre effort.

In the heart of Spanish Harlem in New York City about nine children have gone missing in the last three weeks. On the case is detective Alex Scott (Christian Camargo) who is determined to find out who or what is responsible while dealing with various guilt-ridden moments about losing his son years prior (which are shown in ultimately pointless flashbacks at various times). At the same time single mother Maria (Adriana Dominguez) seems to be having psychic visions about the victims as she's prone to have her eyes roll back into her head while sketching the missing child. She also thinks it's the work of the supernatural being La Llorona who is targeting kids to sate her curse and drowning them in the lake at Central Park.

In amongst all of this there's a slew of padding with numerous scenes of people driving or walking about, some dry police procedural moments, a somewhat out of place sequence involving a woman who drowns her baby to death in the bathtub after being possessed (her eyes become ringed in red which nobody seems to notice), a fortune teller character who is simply here to explain to the audience about La Llorona that goes on too long, and a finale that just seems to be lacking. Which is really too bad because there are a few flashes of decent mood that Santistevan establishes using eerie whispering and a rumbling musical score - she actually does a pretty competent job overall it's just that the flick is rather dull and a bit scattershot.

When I was watching The Cry I was trying to place Camargo as he looked totally familiar. Then it hit me: he had a memorable side role on "Dexter". While he obviously doesn't get the production values of that show here, and he's forced to play the mostly standard haunted cop everyone wants to see a psychiatrist, he's actually pretty compelling. Given that her character's actions are sometimes illogical (she calls Scott saying she knows who's doing it and proceeds to be vague and somewhat mysterious about it), Dominguez also does okay in her role. It doesn't hurt that she's fairly easy on the eyes and her ultimate fate is actually pretty cool. Apart from that the rest of the cast is made up of generally forgettable characters that didn't stick out much.

Hampered by its muddled script trying to toss in way more than necessary (there's too many flashbacks for starters), The Cry does have its flaws. Even at 80 minutes it does have a tendency to drag and it never reaches a level of excitement the subject could have inspired. At the same time, it did make me curious enough about La Llorona to look up the legend afterwards. I also have to commend the makers for creating a Latino based genre flick since there are really not a lot of them coming out of North America. This all being said, I can't recommend this, though I would be open to seeing Santistevan give the genre another go in the future. (Chris Hartley, 9/30/14)

Directed By: Bernadine Santistevan.
Written By: Bernadine Santistevan, Monique Salazar.

Starring: Christian Camargo, Adriana Dominguez, Carlos Leon, Miriam Colon.