Every Haunting Hour Ever #44: The Weeping Woman

Season: 3

Episode: 4
Original Airdate: October 27, 2012
Director: Neill Fearnley
Writer(s): Harold Hayes Jr. & Craig S. Phillips

Hello there ladies and gentlemen! This is Azu here and boy are we in for a treat with this episode! So much so that I'm just going to get right into the review starting... Now!

A Mexican boy named Chi (Rico Rodriguez) is staying over his friend, Danny Nelson's, house, but Danny's mom has been bitter, depressed, and unhospitable lately because of her husband's constant traveling — and things get worse when her negative feelings bring to life the spirit of a hooded woman known in Hispanic urban legend as "La Llorona," a beautiful woman who drowned herself and her children after her husband abandoned her and now walks the Earth trying to drown children who have been neglected by their parents. La Llorona (Lani Gelara) comes and takes Hannah and Chad to the pond and tries to drown them. Chi overcomes his fear of water and rescues the kids. Mr. Nelson returns making Mrs. Nelson happy and the La Llorona statue is place in a box outside labeled "Free Stuff."

I'll say this right now. One of the best things about this episode is the atmosphere. Oh my god is it great! In fact, this may be some of the strongest atmosphere in the entire series. In this episode, the atmosphere is very tense, gloomy, and uncomfortable which is built up with things such as Danny's house being a mess, his mom being depressed and easily bothered by little things, nobody talking much when they're eating dinner, the list goes on. Not only does the atmosphere do a great job engulfing the audience into the environment, but it also helps them understand what the characters are feeling and sympathize with them. When I watched this episode, the atmosphere got me on edge as it made me feel like the mother could fly off the handle at any moment, especially at the tiniest of annoyances.

Now before I forget, I'll just go ahead and address the elephant in the room. Yes this episode, much like Scary Mary, is based on a real life urban legend that's a bit more obscure than the Bloody Mary legend Scary Mary was based on. Though because The Weeping Woman's urban legend is a bit more obscure, the episode gives a bit more explanation as to what the legend is about and it actually benefits the episode. Not only does it help the audience get familiarized with the legend, but it also acts as great build up for the Weeping Woman character or as this episode refers to it "La Llorona." Much like the atmosphere, by sprinkling information about the legend throughout the episode, it does a good job not only engulfing itself in lore but also piquing the audience's curiosity by making them want to watch the episode all the way through to see who exactly this "La Llorona" character is.

Now I do have one complaint about this episode and that is La Llorona. Here's the thing though. I don't dislike the character as a whole. In fact, I really like her design from the vacant eye holes to the pale, slightly cracked skin to the long white robe. If you ask me, it's actually kind of a scary design. However, there are some thing that she does that are flat out silly and I feel detracts from the scariness of the design. For example, when Danny goes down to the basement for snacks, he opens up the freezer and discovers that the door leads to a black outdoor area with seaweed covering the opening. A few seconds later, La Llorona pops out and does a jump scare Five Nights at Freddy's style. Also, during the climax where Llorona tries to drown Danny and his sister, Chi comes in to try and save them. However, La Lorona makes this noise that I can only describe as a woman trying to imitate Tarzan's famous yell and failing horribly at it. As I was watching this scene, I thought to myself, "Oh god. THAT'S the sound they went with!?" Yeah as you can tell, it's kind of the same issue I had with Scary Mary in that the payoff was nowhere near as good as the buildup.

Overall, The Weeping Woman is a very strong and enjoyable episode, even if you aren't familiar with the Weeping Woman legend going in. It's one of those episodes that's worth at least a few viewings.

Overall Grade: A-