October Horror Movie Challenge: The Curse of La Llorona (2019) - The Conjuring Series

There is some debate on whether or not The Curse of La Llorona is really part of the Conjuring Universe. There are connections with characters, namely, Tony Amendola as Father Perez and much of the same production team. But it doesn't include the Warrens at all, which seems to be the defining element to be a proper Conjuring movie. But I have enjoyed tales about La Llorona in the past, so I wanted to include it. 

The Curse of La Llorona (2019) - Conjuring Timeline 1673, 1973

The highlight of this movie for me is Linda Cardellini as Anna Tate-Garcia, the case worker who uncovers the mystery of La Llorona.  

The story follows social worker Anna, who gets tangled up in the legend of La Llorona, the “Weeping Woman” cursed to wander the earth, drowning children to replace the ones she lost. Naturally, Anna’s own kids become the next target. With help from a former priest turned folk healer (Raymond Cruz), she has to protect them as the ghostly figure stalks the family through a series of dark nights and spectral encounters.

On its own terms, the movie is serviceable but forgettable. Sadly this is true for many of the La Llorona movies I have seen.  The scares are formulaic, long silences, sudden jolts, loud noises, bones cracking, and while La Llorona’s design is creepy enough, she never feels as iconic as Valak or even Annabelle. The performances are solid (Cardellini anchors the film with genuine emotion), but the script doesn’t give them much to work with beyond the usual haunted-house beats.

Where things get messy is the franchise connection. The film was marketed as part of the Conjuring universe, largely because of a cameo by Father Perez (Tony Amendola), the same priest from Annabelle (2014). But that’s it, no Warrens, no lore tie-ins, no connective tissue beyond a wink and a nod. The result is that La Llorona feels more like an afterthought than a true expansion of the world. It’s a missed opportunity: imagine if the film had really leaned into the folklore and shown us how global legends tie into the same demonic forces the Warrens fight. Instead, it plays like “Conjuring-lite.”

At the end of the day, The Curse of La Llorona is a footnote, a half-step: a film that wants to belong to the Conjuringverse but never quite earns its place. It’s not bad, exactly; it’s just uninspired. Horror fans deserved a folkloric deep dive; instead, they got a by-the-numbers spookfest with a brand-name label slapped on. The only thing that saves this is Linda Cardellini.

This was easily my least favorite so far. I'll go watch some Spanish-language La Llorona. They may not be any better, but at least I can practice my Spanish.

Occult D&D and NIGHT SHIFT

La Llorona could make a great folkloric monster. The archetype of the grief-stricken, child-stealing ghost is strong, perfect for Ravenloft or a NIGHT SHIFT. But in this film, the execution never matches the potential. It’s like the DM came up with a great monster idea but only used it for random jump scares instead of building a full scenario around it.

I get it. I have been following tales of La Llorona for decades. I wanted to use her in WitchCraft RPG buit never could get her just right. The same trouble, it seems, the filmmakers had here.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 10
First Time Views: 8

October Horror Movie Challenge: Annabelle Comes Home (2019) - The Conjuring Series

 I have to give credit to HBO Max, it has all the Conjuring movies in chronological and release order. So it has made it easy for me.  Tonight we come back to Annabelle and the Warrens.

Annabelle Comes Home (2019) - Conjuring Timeline 1972-1973

"She's in a case for a reason." Judy Warren on Annabelle.

This one picks up on a thread from Annabelle, the Warrens picking up the Annabelle doll from the nursing students.  As they drive home, we learn from Lorraine (again, the fantastic Vera Farmiga) that the doll attracts all sorts of wayward spirits. This is punctuated when Ed (the equally fantastic Patrick Wilson) is pushed out into the road in front of a moving truck by a ghost. He survives (we still have a lot more movies after all).  The scene where they bring the doll home and seal it up is genuinely creepy, but no scares, which works to the movie's favor. 

In this movie, we are joined by Mckenna Grace as Judy Warren, who might be one of the hardest-working young actresses in Hollywood. Seriously, go to her IMDB page.

So the big question here is: Annabelle has been featured in two movies already and mentioned in another (and movies I have not seen yet) what more could you possibly do with her? The answer, as it turns out, is “make her the centerpiece of a supernatural funhouse where every cursed object in the Warrens’ basement gets a chance to shine.” Sounds like a great adventure to me.

The setup is simple, and that’s what makes it work. The Warrens (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, in glorified cameos) head out of town, leaving their daughter Judy (Mckenna Grace) at home with babysitter Mary Ellen (Madison Iseman). Naturally, Annabelle gets loose, and soon every artifact in the Warrens’ collection is humming with malicious intent. Ghosts, specters, and demonic presences crawl out of the woodwork, turning the house into a siege of supernatural chaos.

Judy is the focus of this movie, showing some of her mother's gifts (she keeps seeing a dead priest), and as expected, she is the ostracized girl in school. The Warrens are not in this as much and you know what? You don't miss them even when their legacy looms large.

Aside. So far, this one has the best soundtrack of all the movies in the series.

If Annabelle (2014) was only ok, and Annabelle: Creation (2017) was genuinely creepy, then Annabelle: Comes Home lands somewhere in between, it’s less about building dread and more about delivering a “greatest hits” reel of haunted set-pieces. In that sense, it almost feels like an anthology: the Ferryman, the Hellhound, the Bride, each new apparition stealing a scene before Annabelle herself reminds us she’s still the queen of cursed dolls. Daniela's walk through the Warren's storeroom of haunted artifacts is actually is really fun. If you are a horror aficionado or a fan of the creepy and bizarre, there are plenty of recognizable items. 

As I mentioned above, the film’s secret weapon is Mckenna Grace. She gives Judy Warren a vulnerability and quiet strength that grounds the whole thing. She is really, really good. I am looking to seeing how much better she will get now that she can take on bigger roles. The supporting cast, especially Katie Sarife as the curious friend Daniela, brings warmth and humor to what could have just been a parade of jump scares. I mean they could have made Daniela the idiot friend that lets out all the ghosts, but instead you really feel for her. 

Is it the scariest entry in the Conjuring Universe? No. But it is the most fun. It’s a popcorn horror flick, a rollercoaster through the Warrens’ nightmare museum. And in a franchise that sometimes leans too heavy on grim seriousness, that lighter touch isn’t a bad thing.

The first Conjuring has been the best so far, but I like this one a lot too. 

We end with a photo of the real Warrens and a dedication to Lorraine Warren who died in 2019. Judy Warren is currently the owner of the Warren's Museum.  

Occult D&D and NIGHT SHIFT

From a gamer’s perspective, Annabelle Comes Home is basically a haunted dungeon crawl. The party (the kids) are locked in a location full of cursed relics, and each one is its own encounter. Open the wrong cabinet, fail the wrong saving throw, and you’re dealing with an entirely new monster. It’s the kind of “house of horrors” scenario every GM secretly wants to run, where the players never know what’s coming through the next door.

The occult angle is that each object has its own history, its own connection to the world of the supernatural.  In NIGHT SHIFT you would need to research them to figure out how to shut them down. 

The Warren's storeroom and office is a treasure trove of ideas.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 9
First Time Views: 7

Witchcraft Wednesday: Psychic Powers

 I have been going through my notes for my "Occult D&D" project and my list of potential movies to watch this October and they crossover at an interesting point.

Troubled Psychic Kids. 

I love the AD&D psionic system. Yes, I really do. But it is not without its problems. Ok. It has a lot of problems. I want a system that would allow me to do "Carrie" or "The Fury" or even "Scanners." Well. I don't have that yet. But I have started pencilling down ideas. Here is where I am at right now.

The Six Disciplines of the Mind

"The vulgar eye perceives magic where there is none. The vulgar mind dismisses the psychic because it is not magic. Yet to the trained investigator, these disciplines are neither miracle nor madness. They are the natural sciences of the unseen, awaiting only the patience to be catalogued."

 - Research Notes, Book I, Prof. Scott Elders

When I started sketching my ideas for Occult D&D, I wanted to treat psychic powers the same way I approached witches: something that feels like it could have sat on a hobby store shelf in 1986. These aren’t just mechanics; they’re the “folk science” of the strange, drawing from parapsychology, pulp fiction, and the endless debates of game tables where psionics were talked about but rarely used.

After sorting through decades of parapsychology claims, RPG precedents, and a few eldritch debates between Larina and Prof. Elders (yeah, characters argue in my head. It is worse than the tinnitus I have), I’ve settled on six core disciplines of the psychic arts… with a seventh, optional frontier discipline for those who dare.

Telepathy

The ability to communicate mind-to-mind, read surface thoughts, and in its higher expressions, dominate another’s will. Telepaths are the most feared of psychics, for no secret is safe.

Sub-powers: Empathy, Mind Link, Mental Domination.

Clairvoyance

The “second sight” of lore: perceiving hidden things, distant places, or future events. Often confused with prophecy, but rooted in the psychic’s own perception rather than divine revelation.

Sub-powers: ESP, Remote Viewing, Precognition.

Psychokinesis

The raw power of the mind over matter. From small acts of levitation to hurling objects across a battlefield, this is the most spectacular and physically demanding of disciplines.

Sub-powers: Telekinesis, Pyrokinesis, Kinetic Barriers.

Biopsionics

The mysterious link between mind and body. Practitioners can heal, alter their own form, or endure conditions no mortal should. It is whispered some can change shape entirely by thought alone.

Sub-powers: Psychic Healing, Trance, Body Control, Shape Alteration.

Mediumship

The spirit-bridge: channeling entities, communing with the dead, or casting one’s soul into the astral plane. In AD&D terms, this is where the occult and the psychic most clearly overlap.

Sub-powers: Astral Projection, Spirit Communication, Possession.

Precognition

Visions of things yet to come, sometimes crystal clear, more often symbolic and frustrating. True precogs are rare, and their gift is as much curse as blessing.

Sub-powers: Danger Sense, Probability Manipulation, Visionary Trance.

The Optional Seventh: Metapsionics

Where the others act upon mind, matter, or spirit, metapsionics acts upon psionics themselves. These rare gifts allow a psychic to alter the use of powers, dampen another’s talents, or amplify their own. Some say it is a discipline that shouldn’t exist at all, it is a loophole in reality’s design.

Sub-powers: Psionic Dampening, Psychic Harmonization, Probability Twisting.

--

None of this is written in stone, just in the pixels you see before you.

I also still need to figure out how psychic powers co-exist with witchcraft. 

October Horror Movie Challenge: The Conjuring (2013) - The Conjuring Series

The centerpiece of the Conjuring Universe, the one that started it all.

The Conjuring (2013) - Conjuring Timeline 1968-1971 

Ok. There is lot going on here. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga star as real-life couple and demonic investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. The Warrens' investigations also gave us the Amityville Horror story and film franchises. Maybe I should have included them in this. Nah.  Lorraine Warren even makes a cameo appearance in this movie, before her passing in 2019. 

First off, Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga are both fantastic. I have enjoyed everything they have been in even when the surrounding movie was terrible.  This movie is not terrible. 

And honestly, the whole cast is fantastic.  Ron Livingston and Lili Taylor as the Perron parents, and Joey King as one of their daughters. All also based on real people. 

The Annabelle sub-plot is only the prologue to the main tale. 

By 2013, the haunted house genre seemed played out, but this movie really revived it. Revived isn't right, it brought back to life. And there are a lot of great scares here. The demon grabbing Christine's leg is certainly going to give someone nightmares. 

We learn the house is cursed by an accused satanic witch who killed her baby and herself in a satanic ritual at 3:07 am, when all the clocks stop. 

What makes The Conjuring stand out is the execution. James Wan stages his scares with precision. Long takes, creeping camera movement, and subtle sound design build tension until it’s unbearable and then the hammer drops. The clapping game in the cellar remains one of the best set pieces in modern horror, not because of gore or CGI, but because of its timing and restraint. 

When things happen, they happen all at once. 

Turns out the place is full of ghosts and demonic forces. 

There are a lot of parallels between this and Steven Spielberg's Poltergeist. You would be excused if you thought  they were based on the same story and told from very different points of view. 

NIGHT SHIFT & Occult D&D

There is no end of material for either my Occult D&D and NIGHT SHIFT. I mean, this is a NIGHT SHIFT campaign right here. Ed and Lorriane are by the rulebook occult scholars and a psychic. The scene where the occult investigators come into the house is fantastic and feels like found footage.  Not to mention, there are more secret rooms in this house than in a Gygax dungeon.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 8
First Time Views: 6

October Horror Movie Challenge: Annabelle (2014) - The Conjuring Series

Now we come to the first proper sequel, or prequel to the Conjuring universe, 2014's Annabelle. 

Annabelle (2014) - Conjuring Timeline 1968-1970

Ok, now we are in the 1970s, the start of the modern Satanic Panic. 

There is an attempt here to connect this all to the Manson Family murders, which I understand was an inspiration for some part of this series.

John and Mia Form (Ward Horton and Annabelle Wallis) are a new couple and Mia is very pregnant. John gives her a gift of the Annabelle doll. 

We are treated to a scene later, Mia's point of view of the adopted Janice, aka Annabell, from Annabelle: Creation, killing her adoptive parents. The killers come next door and attack Mia and John. One of the killers kills herself, holding the Annabelle doll.  We do learn that the killer was Janice/Annabell. Is the doll the same one as in A:C? No idea, but we do know they were all made by Samuel Mullins.

The predictable spookiness starts. BTW, this series does a lot to make rocking chairs scary. The sewing machine was stressing me out, too. My mom was a seamstress, and she used to run needles through her fingers all the time. The TV going out was too much like Poltergeist. 

The actors are not great, save for Alfre Woodard and Tony Amendola, who are both always great. To be fair, Ward Horton and Annabelle Wallis are not given a lot to work with. 

I had heard that this was the weakest link in the series, and I can see that. It is certainly not as good as Annabelle: Creation. The movie is slow, unnecessarily so, really. Annabelle: Creation really redeems this series so far. 

NIGHT SHIFT & Occult D&D

You know I love 1970s occult horror, and there are plenty of ideas here, even if the movie itself didn't fully take advantage. 

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 7
First Time Views: 6

Auction Scores Tuesady

 Last week was the semi-annual Game Plus auction in Mount Prospect, IL.

The RPG auction used to be huge and take up most of the day on Saturday. Now it is on Friday night and is done in a few hours. Board games now dominate the weekend. 

But that doesn't mean there weren't so good choices to be had. I went in looking for some Star Wars books for my oldest, but came home with just three new games for myself.

That is a brand new Runequest starter set, still in shrink. A brand new Dragonbane, also still in shrink. And an older, but still like new, Basic Set of The Dark Eye RPG.

Take home price? $42 for all of them.

I am pretty happy with them all to be honest. Dragonbane looks awesome. And my oldest has wanted a fantasy game that uses the BRP system for a bit now. 

I think given this. I am going to create a Duck/Mallard character for both Dragonbane and Runequest.  

And I think I know exactly what character I want to do.

Behold THE WIZARD!

But maybe more this vibe. 

Now for a good name.

October Horror Movie Challenge: The Nun II (2023) - The Conjuring Series

The next in the Conjuring chronological timeline is 2023's The Nun II. This time we move from an orphanage for girls to a boarding school for girls. 

The Nun II (2023) - Conjuring Timeline 1956

We start this one four years after the events of The Nun. This one starts with the death of a Priest in Tarascon, France (yes, where they defeated the Tarasque). We also find Sister Irene in an Italian Convent, and Maurice, aka Frenchie, is working at a school in France. Father Burke, we learn, is dead. 

Sister Irene is charged with investigating Valak again. This time, the setting shifts across Europe, with the demon’s shadow stretching into the French boarding school. That shift works: there’s something inherently creepy about children in peril, especially when Catholic ritual and dark demonic legend overlap.

The visuals remain the franchise’s strongest card. If you’re into ruined chapels, candlelit corridors, and sudden blasts of holy fire, this movie has you covered. Valak remains terrifying, arguably even more so here than in the first film. She looms larger, and the filmmakers lean harder into the iconography: shadowy halls, painted saints staring down, and that pale face waiting just past the edge of the light.

Where it falters is pacing. At times, the movie wants to be a detective story, with Irene piecing together the mystery of Valak’s hunt for a sacred relic. At other times, it just wants to throw another jump scare at the screen. The result is uneven. There are moments that feel like The Exorcist by way of Hammer Horror, and then there are moments that feel like a haunted house ride we’ve been through before. The shadow of the Exorcist looms large. 

Still, I found this one more satisfying than the first. It is a slower burn, and there’s a stronger sense of continuity, not just with The Nun, but with The Conjuring films overall. The lore deepens, and the stakes feel higher. Farmiga is still great, and she anchors the film with quiet intensity, and Storm Reid (as her ally, Sister Debra, and from A Wrinkle in Time) brings some fresh energy to the dynamic. Honestly, I want a movie of these two criss-crossing Europe as demon hunters. Psychic Irene and skeptic-but-looking-for-her-faith Debra in a trans-European romp. Doesn't fit the vibe of the series at all, but it would be fun. 

Is it perfect? No. But The Nun II knows what it’s about, and it leans harder into the occult Gothic aesthetic that made Valak such a standout villain in the first place. If you liked the first but wanted more, this delivers. If you didn’t like the first at all, this won’t change your mind.

Occut D&D and NIGHT SHIFT

From an RPG perspective, The Nun II plays out like a second act in a campaign. The first adventure introduces the villain; the second broadens the scope, drops hints of deeper lore, and raises the stakes with bigger set pieces. 

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 7
First Time Views: 6