Lloronas, Chupacabras, and Other Creatures: Latin American Folklore on Screen

The story of La Llorona—the weeping spirit everyone recognizes but no one wants to face—has been passed down orally for hundreds of years, spanning nearly all of Latin America and tracing its origins to Mesoamerican myths. Yet despite her prevalence, La Llorona is far from the region’s only folkloric monster. Others, such as the Pishtaco, the Qarqacha, or the Curupira, have haunted Latin American cinema throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-first century.

Lloronas, Chupacabras, and O...