‘The Curse of La Llorona’ Nearly Featured Stronger ‘Conjuring’ References

When The Conjuring debuted back in 2013, it connected strongly with horror fans, thanks to its performances, stylish direction, and exploration of paranormal investigations based on the real-life case files of Ed and Lorraine Warren. In the years since the series’ launch, fans have seen sequels, spinoffs, and spinoff prequels, in addition to anyone connected to the franchise behind the scenes finding success with other projects. This past weekend saw The Curse of La Llorona take the top spot at the box office, aided in no small part by it sharing some filmmakers with the Conjuring series. Director Michael Chaves recently noted that one scene was cut from the film which made a stronger connection to The Conjuring than what is seen in the theatrical cut.

WARNING: Mild spoilers below for The Curse of La Llorona

The film currently features a scene in which Tony Amendola’s Father Perez makes mention of his experience with a demonic doll, the events of which were explored in the first Conjuring spinoff Annabelle. Chaves admitted that La Llorona also nearly featured a reference to the Warrens themselves.

“There was a lot of discussion about it,” Chavez shared with GameSpot about connecting the film to The Conjuring. “Father Perez does make a reference to other people who work for the church. There is actually a scene that was going to be at the end of the movie where at the very end of the film we shot Linda’s [Cardellini] character, who hands over the necklace to Raymond [Cruz’s character], you know, for safekeeping. And Raymond says that he knows someone who can keep it safe and that they’re on the East Coast and they handle this sort of thing.”

As opposed to films like Annabelle and The Nun, which explicitly shares evil entities with ones we’ve seen in The Conjuring, The Curse of La Llorona merely features one character appear for a second time, confirming the shared universe. Chaves thought the inclusion of the above scene would feel too forced to establish that connection.

“The scene was really cool and I think everybody really liked it,” the director noted. “But we felt like it was too heavy-handed, like just trying to lay in all these connections to [The Conjuring]. We definitely had a lot of fun with it, everyone involved, we are all fans of the Conjuring universe, and of course we had James Wan as a producer. We were just like kids in a candy store trying to make all these connections.”

The Curse of La Llorona is in theaters now. The next film in the shared universe landing in theaters is Annabelle Comes Home on June 28th and The Conjuring 3, directed by Chaves, on September 11, 2020.

Do you wish this scene was included in the movie? Let us know in the comments below or hit up @TheWolfman on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars!

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