The Curse of La Llorona (2019)

In 1673, Spanish Mexico, a family plays in a field, and the youngest son gives his mother a necklace, who says she will treasure the item forever. The boy goes on a hike a while later and finds his mother violently drowning his brother in a stream. Horrified, he runs, but his mother catches him; he is assumed to be drowned as well.

Three hundred years later, in 1973 Los Angeles, recently widowed caseworker Anna investigates the truancy of client Patricia Alvarez's two children. Arriving at Patricia's house for a welfare check, she finds the children locked behind a door. After she insisted and though she was warned to get away from the door, Patricia attacks her and is taken away by the police. Patricia's sons, Carlos and Tomas, tell Anna to keep them in the room, so they are protected. Ignoring their warnings, she takes them to the child-services shelter. There, Tomas sleepwalks, and Carlos follows him until both boys see a woman in a white dress who attacks them. The boys are found drowned in a river, and Anna is called out to the scene. She brings her own children, Chris and Sam, and they stay in the car while she investigates. She hears Patricia, accused of her sons' murders, screaming that it was Anna's fault for taking her sons and that Patricia had tried to stop a malevolent force that she names "La Llorona".

Chris leaves the car out of curiosity and encounters a weeping woman, who seizes his wrist and leaves burns. She stalks him back to the car, but leaves once Anna returns and the family flees the scene. The next day, Anna meets with Father Perez about whether or not to believe the myth of La Llorona. In the process, Anna and her family begin to experience a series of unexplained incidents. La Llorona also grabs Sam and leaves identical burn marks the next day. Anna interviews Patricia, who has an alibi for the time of her sons' deaths. However, Patricia reveals that in her hatred for Anna, she prayed to La Llorona to bring her own boys back and take Anna's children instead. Soon after, Anna encounters La Llorona when the spirit attempts to drown Sam in the bathtub. The ghost leaves burn marks on Anna's arm too. Anna seeks help from Father Perez, who relates the case to his previous experiences with a haunted porcelain doll. Perez tells Anna about former priest Rafael Olvera, who has since become a folk shaman or curandero, who may be able to help them. Rafael arrives at Anna's house, setting up items for protection. In the night, La Llorona repeatedly attacks them and attempts to drown Anna and Sam in the pool after Sam cannot seem to let go of her Doll, thus endangering the family further. Anna pulls off La Llorona's necklace in the struggle.

Patricia arrives with a gun and tries to give Anna's children to La Llorona. Sam and Chris flee. Patricia, realizing that she can't let another mother feel the same pain she felt or bring her children back to life, comes to her senses and releases Anna, allowing her to help her children. Chris delays La Llorona by showing her the necklace that La Llorona's son had given her. This makes La Llorona briefly assume her human appearance and caress Chris, imagining him to be her real son. However, Sam accidentally unveils a mirror, and La Llorona reverts and proceeds to attack them. Anna stabs her through the chest with a cross given by Rafael, made from a tree that grew by the river where La Llorona drowned her children; the only "witness" to her crime. The spirit is destroyed.

Anna and her children thank Rafael for his help. When he leaves, Anna looks down into a puddle of water beside the road.