An amulet of urge is a magical object that is believed to enhance motivation and drive. It is said to possess the power to ignite intense desire and ambition within the person who wears or possesses it. The amulet is often made of a special crystal or gemstone, such as citrine or carnelian, which are believed to possess energetic properties that can stimulate the wearer's inner fire. The amulet of urge is thought to tap into the wearer's deepest desires and passions, amplifying them to fuel a relentless pursuit of goals and dreams. It is said to provide a constant source of inspiration and push the wearer to take action and overcome obstacles. As a result, those who wear this amulet are often believed to be more driven, focused, and determined in their endeavors.

The Curse of the Crying Woman (1963)

La Llorona (“the crying woman”) is a popular legend in Mexico, the haunting tale of a woman named Xochitl who marries a rich ranchero or conquistador (depending on which version of the tale you hear) and has two children wit him. When she catches her husband with another woman, her rage drives her to murder the children by drowning them in a river. Consumed by guilt, she then drowns herself but is cursed to return to Earth to find her children and manifests as a sobbing spectre.

There’s very little of this in Rafael Baledón’s La maldición de la Llorona/The Curse of the Crying Woman (Ramón Peón’s La Llorona/The Crying Woman (1933) is a much more faithful retelling of the legend) which instead is a story about vampires (or something very similar at least) and curses, though it’s a rather intriguing one – it has its flaws but it’s a cut above the usual standard for 60s Mexican black and white Gothic horrors.

It begins with that staple of the Gothic horror cinema, the coach being stranded in the middle of nowhere. The facially scarred Juan (Carlos López Moctezuma) attacks the coach, killing all aboard while a woman, Selma (Rita Manedo), holding three large dogs on leashes and with completely black, seemingly sightless eyes, “watches” from a safe distance. Selma’s niece Amelia (Rosa Arenas) arrives with her husband Jaime (Mexican horror regular Abel Salazar) on the eve of her birthday and is initially startled by a mirror in which she sees a black-eyed woman and a corpse. That night, she and Jaime hear a woman crying in the night Selma flies back into her hacienda like a bat (she exhibits many of the traits of a vampire though no-one ever refers to her as such) and stands near a blackened corpse that we later learn is her late mother Marina, supposedly the crying woman of the title. Selma plans to use Amelia top pass on the family curse and revive her mother who she has kept in a state somewhere between life and death by regularly sacrificing the descendants of the jury that condemned her to death for witchcraft and feeding her their blood.

In the original la Llorona story and even in the many variations on the theme that its mutated into in the years since, the eponymous woman was as much a victim as anything else, a tragic figure cursed to walk the earth in search of her dead children for an eternity. Here, her counterpart Marina remains an enigmatic figure even at the end, but Selma makes no bones about her evil intentions, spilling the beans about her plans to Amelie within minutes of meeting her.

There isn’t really a great deal here that will surprise the seasoned horror watcher and indeed some of it will seem very familiar indeed. A shot near the very start of the film signals Baledón’s intentions – Selma is seen wreathed in mist in a patently artificial studio-bond “exterior” holding back three large dogs. The shot will immediately resonate with anyone familiar with the similar shot in Mario Bava’s La maschera del demonio/Mask of Satan/Black Sunday (1960). But while the shocks are all too often signalled by clumsy crash zooms and discordant musical stings from Gustavo César Carrión but you can cut the atmosphere with the proverbial knife.

There’s an everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach to Baledón’s free-wheeling screenplay, adapted from a story by Fernando Galiana, with so many genre trappings thrown in that you’re bound to find something to your taste here even if the plot itself doesn’t really hold together one jot. There’s a mad relative in the attic, an undead witch, a wolf man, an inherited curse, a magic mirror, a club-footed manservant and a Poe-like extended finale in which the hacienda slowly disintegrates around the warring antagonists. It often has the feel of 1940s Universal horror film at times (several of them, all rolled into one in fact).

The special effects are crude but work well in a sort of dark fairy story sort of way and add to the often surreal ambience – there’s a memorably weird moment in which a tormented Selma stands beneath a sky full of eyes and elsewhere a flashback plays out, inexplicably, entirely in negative. It’s a very strange film, a mish mash of ideas and images largely lifted from elsewhere, but it’s moments like these and the pervasive atmosphere of dread that elevates it above the usual level for these Mexican Gothics of the time.

La Llorona had recently appeared in the René Cardona’s 1960 film simply titled La Llorona but although the legend has long been a popular one, she remained off screen until 2008 when she turned up in Rigoberto Castañeda’s Kilometer 31, which led to the creation of a mini-cottage industry of films featuring the crying woman. The River: Legend of La Llorona (2006), Revenge of La Llorona (2006), J-ok’el (2007), La Leyenda de la Llorona (2007) (an animated film that cleaves closer than usual to the details of the original folk legend), The Curse of La Llorona (2007) and La Llorona (2019) all followed in its wake. Her highest profile role to date is probably in Michael Chaves’ The Curse of La Llorona (2019) which turned out to be the sixth film in James Wan’s popular The Conjuring franchise.

The Curse of the Crying Woman

A young woman inherits a mansion, only to discover that it is haunted by witches and evil spirits.

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Alternative Titles

La casa embrujada, Les larmes de la sorcière, Les Larmes de la Malédiction, The curse of the crying woman

Genres

Releases by Date

Theatrical

15 Aug 1961

Releases by Country

Mexico

15 Aug 1961

• Theatrical

As a result, those who wear this amulet are often believed to be more driven, focused, and determined in their endeavors. While the concept of an amulet of urge may seem fantastical, it is rooted in the belief that certain objects possess energetic properties that can influence our emotions and behavior. Similar to how different colors can elicit specific emotions or how certain scents can evoke memories, the amulet is believed to act as a conduit for channeling and intensifying the wearer's inner drive and ambition.

Popular reviews

The campiness on this movie is off. the. CHAAAAAARTS! In my opinion, the film nearly completely fails in its attempt to scare its audience. There's nothing particularly frightening here, unless you're a fan of fantastic monster make-up and actor howling and groaning around, in which case this one will likely have a stronger impact on you. If you're searching for a good time with plenty of B movie fun, you're in luck. There's all these random crash zooms and shots where people exhibit outrageous facial expressions are frequently used to emphasize the actors' over-the-top performances. If it weren't for the fact that Sam Raimi was still an infant at the time, you could assume he directed this film. And besides…

So, if we take 1931 Spanish Dracula*, as a key point for Mexican Horror, is this then, the remake of The Old Dark House. This is again a retelling of the fable of the La Llorona ("The Crying Woman" or "The Wailer") and to be fair, I preferred this a lot more than the 1933 Ramón Peón version. Really enjoyable gothic hokum, with great effects and sets. Possibly the best made and most enjoyable film from the Mexico Macabre set. There is a form of Whale influence here as well as the Black Cat (hell speaking of Uni horror, this opens in the interior of a carriage). So this really is up my street as a horror jam. The only…

Back in colonial times, there was a woman who shocked the people . She was terrifying because she wanted power. She sacrificed everything to achieve it. She scorned even love.

In films noir, the deep fear patriarchal societies felt about women claiming greater control of their lives (their relationships, their time, their sexuality) expresses itself in the form of femmes fatale: emotionless women who bend men to their will for the pure pleasure of it, manipulating their helpless victims with their bodies and their words, and with the desire they can create in those who gaze upon them. In horror films, meanwhile, the danger is even greater, because the women of horror are able to access supernatural powers with which…

"The Curse of the Crying Woman" is the fourth and final film in the Mexico Macabre box set from Indicator. The films looks very good, has some solid set and production design, good make up and at the end, some pretty spectacular miniature and set-destruction work. The opening of the movie was great and there are some strong visuals throughout the film. What was missing for me was the tension. I did not really feel invested in the story and the characters. Not sure if it’s the actors fault or the writing, a combination or if I was just in the wrong mood last night. It surely is a movie worth watching for fans of old-school and Mexican Horror and…

“she is not dead, she only sleeps..” fuck yes! so beyond thick with gothic atmosphere that it’s got me swooning. while this is not actually about the legend of its title, it instead is a Mexican horror that centers around the curse of the wailing witch who gave up love in exchange for power. now, the women of her family are cursed to the same fate. Selma is a descendent of this lineage, and she has lured her niece, Amelia, to her mansion so that she can use her in an evil ritual to resurrect the original witch and make the three of them very powerful and immortal. all this set in a crumbling mansion in the foggy woods, where…

Hooptober X: Encounters of the Spooky Kind
Spooky Encounter #28 Released some three decades after the original 1933 film, this is a fairly successful attempt to meld the La Llorona folk tale to a more generalised Gothic framework. Some of the specifics of the myth end up rather muddied as a result (particularly the significant link to Mexico’s pre-Christian past), meaning that the crying woman in white is herself reduced to the more generic figure of the witch, but we do get a renewed sense of the appeal that the story might hold for women who see the attraction in exchanging a ‘moral’ bourgeois life under patriarchy for the malefic power and immortality of La Llorona. Director Rafael Baledón was…

THE IMPORTANT CINEMA CLUB SUPER SCARY MOVIE CHALLENGE" #1 - A Mexican Horror Film On the eve of her 25th birthday, a young woman is informed that at the stroke of midnight, she will turn into a blood-sucking ghoul who will resurrect The Crying Woman (by pulling a spear out a corpse's chest!) Gothic horror on steroids. CRYING WOMAN delivers the castle, the cobwebs and the secret passages, but also injects great dane attacks, a monster man in the attic, flying skulls and a ticking vampirism clock! This scratches every B&W horror itch and does it promptly and without fuss. You know things are going to be wild when the movie stars with a carriage running over a screaming girl. OTHER RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THIS CATEGORY: EVEN THE WIND IS AFRAID (1968), BLACK PIT OF DR. M (1959), THE BRAINIAC (1962)

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“La Maldición de La Llorona” es una película extraña en no el mejor sentido de las palabras, un historia sin mucha sentido que intenta abarcar demasiado dentro de su misma convención de la historia, hombres lobo? Mujeres lloronas pero que parecen más vampiros? Y lo peor es que no saben utilizar la leyenda de la llorona que es una de…

might be too lean for its own good, putting just about all of the work on its atmosphere (which is very thick) but that's not a problem for me when your film is full of genuine nightmare fuel, including numerous images of a woman's face sans eyes which will likely haunt my dreams for nights to come -- truly exceptional use of the 1.37 frame

Malevolence emanates like invisible smoke from black unearthly eyes, eyes powered not by light but shadow, eyes like dark infernal shafts leading to the Abyss. A witch-woman’s wish for omnipotence requires evil and manipulation, dehumanization and necromancy. Bava-like secret passageways beckon unto rat-infested crypts stinking of foul vampiric magic. A family curse hangs like a millstone from the neck of a young señora, plummeting her toward damnation as the witching hour approaches. In the best scene, a spear is pulled reverently, like an unholy Longinus, from the pierced gullet of a decomposing lich-Savior. Baledón‘s gothic yarn is imperfect but features perfect moments.

(Letterboxd has the wrong date for this, it's 1961). Another superb Mexican horror movie in the Gothic tradition that was released by the sadly defunct Casanegra DVD label. The effects in this range from laughable (dogs that are supposedly attacking a man are shown calmly eating chunks of meat off of his throat) to effective (an appliance worn over the face of the lead actress make it look like she has black pits where her eyes should be). Regarding the effectiveness of cheap make-up: I'm finding it difficult to put this thought into words, but does anyone else think that cheap make-up and costumes can sometimes be more disturbing than slick, well-produced equivalents? The main villain in Curse of the…

Movie Review: Curse of the Crying Woman

Back in my early days of being a horror fan, I had a friend that asked me if I had seen any of the Mexican horror films from the late ’50s/early ’60s. At the time, not only had I not seen any of them, I wasn’t really even aware of them. When he offered to send me a couple of them, I told him not to, because I really didn’t want to get into yet another sub-genre of the horror genre! Silly me. Of course, this didn’t stop my friend and he sent me a couple of titles anyway. They were The Bloody Vampire aka El vampiro sangriento (1962), and The Curse of the Crying Woman aka La maldición de la Llorona (1963). After watching them, I was hooked. Growing up on the Universal classics, I had always loved the glorious black and white films, where the atmosphere is thick and heavy and I found that same style in these from South of the boarder!

I’ve seen many of the films from that era since then, but The Curse of the Crying Woman still remains as my favorite. Maybe because it was the first one that I watched way back then, or maybe it’s just that good. The film is loosely based on one a famous Mexican ghost story, the legend of La Llorona, the Crying Woman, so it was taking its roots in its own folklore and creating a new movie monster around it. In this film, it starts out with a stagecoach moving through the foggy woods. All the trees are black and twisted, covered in a thick mist. The coach is stopped by a man on the road, who promptly kills the driver. When the passengers try to escape, they meet a grisly end. There is strange woman watching this attack, while holding back three large dogs. She releases them to take care of one of the passengers who is fleeing. But what is even stranger about the woman is her eyes…or the lack there of. Instead we see two black sockets where her eyes should be. All the while, we have this eerie moaning music playing throughout the attack. And this is just the start of it!

As the story continues on, we meet a young woman and her husband, played by Rosita Arenas and Abel Salazar, who are returning to see her aunt, who she hasn’t seen in several years. She is amazed to see that her aunt hasn’t seemed to age over the long years. She is even more amazed when she discovers the real reason her aunt has called for her to return.

Abel Salazar was an important figure in the Mexican horror films of that time. Not only was he an actor, but he also produced quite a few of them as well. You can see him in El Vampiro (1957) and the sequel El ataúd del Vampiro (1958), as well as playing the title character in The Brainiac (1962). Rosita Arenas also appeared in a few horror titles such as The Witch’s Mirror (1962) as well as the infamous 1958 picture The Aztec Mummy Against the Humanoid Robot (better known to MST3K fans as The Robot vs the Aztec Mummy), the third title in the Aztec Mummy series.

Sure, some of the acting here may be either a little cheesy and played for laughs, or a little stiff. But if you can look beyond that, you’ll see a classic black and white filled with so much atmosphere and style that you’ll forget any of those little negative things you were thinking. The sets, the mood, and the crazy story they come up will immediately grab your attention. Not to mention that some of the effects are very memorable, including the eyeless sockets of the title creature.

If you do love the old Universal classics, and don’t mind reading subtitles (please go with the original dialogue with subs…the dubbed versions take away much of the seriousness of the performances), I couldn’t recommend this title enough. And if this title wets your taste, then keep looking because there is a whole slew of these titles from that era that are amazing, such as El Vampiro (1957) and The Black Pit of Dr. M (1959).

Of course, the power of the amulet of urge ultimately lies in the belief and intention of the wearer. Those who choose to wear this amulet do so with the belief that it will enhance their motivation and drive. This belief can have a profound psychological effect, instilling a sense of confidence and determination that can be transformative in pursuing one's goals. While the amulet of urge may not hold magical powers in the traditional sense, it serves as a symbol and reminder of one's inner desires and aspirations. By wearing this amulet, individuals are reminded of their goals and motivations, helping them stay focused and driven in their pursuit of success. In conclusion, the amulet of urge is a symbolic object believed to enhance motivation and drive. While its powers may not be supernatural, it serves as a powerful reminder of one's inner desires and aspirations. Whether or not one believes in its metaphysical properties, the amulet can serve as a source of inspiration and motivation for those seeking to achieve their goals..

Reviews for "Amulet of Urge: A Guide to Protection and Spiritual Defense"

1. Emily - 2/5 - I was really disappointed with "Amulet of Urge". The plot was weak and the characters lacked depth. I couldn't connect with any of them and found myself losing interest halfway through. The writing style was also quite dull and unimaginative. Overall, I was hoping for an exciting and captivating story but ended up feeling let down.

2. Thomas - 1/5 - I really struggled to get through "Amulet of Urge". The pacing was painfully slow and there was a lack of suspense or any real tension in the plot. The dialogue felt forced and unnatural, making it hard for me to believe in the characters. I found myself constantly wanting to put the book down and ultimately had to force myself to finish it. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone looking for an engaging and well-written fantasy story.

3. Sarah - 2/5 - "Amulet of Urge" had potential, but it failed to deliver. The world-building was weak and the magic system felt underdeveloped. The protagonist was supposed to be the hero, but I couldn't find myself rooting for them. The story also seemed to drag on with unnecessary subplots that didn't contribute much to the overall plot. I was left feeling unsatisfied and longing for a more engaging and cohesive narrative.

Amulet of Urge Practices for Self-Confidence and Courage