Veronica

Dir: Paco Plaza

2017

***

Veronica was released in 2017 under a clever marketing campaign. There was a real buzz surrounding it with many articles released asking ‘Could this be the scariest film of all time?’. It got my attention and it clearly got other’s as well but Veronica isn’t particularly unique, it wasn’t worth the fuss and it certainly isn’t the scariest film of all time – not by a long-shot. It does feature a couple of scary scenes and the idea that is ‘based on a true story’ is only really scary if you buy into such nonsense. The movie is based on events involving Estefanía Gutiérrez Lázaro and her family in 1991. Eighteen-year-old Estefanía reportedly suffered hallucinations and seizures after performing a séance at a school in Madrid to try to contact her friend's deceased boyfriend who had died six months earlier. Estefanía supposedly started to experience strong paranormal activity after playing with a Ouija board with two of her classmates. She would die on August 14, 1991, six months after first playing the Ouija board. Her exact cause of death is said to be a mystery, although I very much doubt that. The paranormal activity was said to have increased after her death. Only one report was filed by the Spanish Policía Nacional, which details the supernatural events observed in Estefanía's house. It was the work of gossip and urban legend. I remember when I saw at school a girl a few years above me died in a tragic accident and the stories made up by the other pupils were shocking. Ten years later when my younger sister joined the school the story of her death was so elaborate I could barely believe it. It’s nasty stuff. I love a good horror film and a creepy camp-fire ghost story but this whole ‘based on a true story’ thing can be dangerous sometimes and it doesn’t sit very well with me. The idea of Ouija boards certainly doesn’t scare me, but the people who do believe in them terrify me. Estefanía’s name is obviously change to that of Verónica and we see her in 1991 living with her mother and three siblings in an apartment in the working-class district of Vallecas, Madrid. Their father died recently and their mother works long hours at a bar to support the family, leaving Verónica in charge of her younger siblings: twins Lucia and Irene, and Antoñito. On the day of the solar eclipse, her teacher explains how some ancient cultures used eclipses to stage human sacrifices and summon dark spirits. Again, suggesting that science and astronomy is somehow connected to evil spirits is mind-numbingly stupid, but only because I know several people who believe this sort of crap. While the school gathers on the roof to view the eclipse, Verónica, her friend Rosa, and their classmate Diana go into the basement to conduct a séance using a Ouija board. Verónica wants to reach out to her late father, and Diana wants to reach out to her late boyfriend, who died in a motorcycle accident. The board responds right away but Rosa and Diana pull their hands back when the glass cup becomes too hot to touch. Verónica's hand remains on it, and at the moment of the eclipse, the cup shatters, cutting her finger and dripping blood onto the board. Verónica becomes unresponsive and suddenly lets out a demonic scream. After passing out, she wakes in the school nurse's office, who tells her she probably passed out from iron deficiency. Verónica begins experiencing paranormal occurrences. She is unable to eat her dinner, as if an invisible hand is preventing her. Claw and bite marks appear on her body and she hears strange noises. Her friends begin avoiding her. Looking for answers, she goes back to the school basement and finds the school's elderly blind nun whom the students call "Sister Death." The nun scolds her for doing something so dangerous and explains that the séance attached a dark spirit to her; she needs to protect her siblings. The nun tries to compel the spirit to leave her, but nothing happens. Verónica draws protective Viking symbols for the kids, only for the demon to destroy them. She tries to help Lucia when the spirit chokes her, but Lucia says it was Verónica who was choking her. That night, Verónica dreams that her siblings are eating her. She wakes up to find that she's on her first period. As she scrubs her mattress, she finds burn marks on the underside. Later, she finds on each of the kids' mattresses a large burn mark in the shape of a human body. Sister Death tells her that she can force the spirits to leave by doing right what she did wrong. Verónica learns that it is important to say goodbye to the spirit at the end of the séance. She asks Rosa and Diana to help her hold another séance, but they refuse. Desperate, she decides to hold the séance with her young siblings. She has Antoñito draw the protective symbols on the walls, but he flips to the wrong page and instead draws symbols of invocation. When she tells the spirit to say goodbye, it refuses. She calls the police as the spirit snatches Antoñito, and helps Lucia and Irene escape. She returns to find her brother hiding and calling her name. She finds him and notices he won’t go with her. Verónica looks at herself in the mirror and sees the demon, realizing she has been possessed by the demon the entire time, and had been harming her siblings under its control. She attempts to end the possession by slitting her own throat but is prevented by the demon. The police enter to find her being attacked by an invisible force and passing out. The medics carry her and Antoñito out while a shaken detective observes the scene. As the detective watches a framed photograph of Verónica suddenly catch fire, he is informed that she has died and five years later in 1996 reports of unexplained paranormal activity had occurred in Madrid. It is explained that the movie is based on the true events of the first police report in Spain where an officer certifies having witnessed paranormal activity. The film really misses a trick here, as the real reason behind these happenings and subsequent events was down to hysteria, which of course can lead to mass hysteria. Hysteria is a fascinating, scary and mysterious thing, that would have been a far more effective focus point for the story. In Verónica we see demons creeping about, so the film is telling us that Verónica was possessed and that it wasn’t in her head. It is a cheap effect that Alfred Hitchcock invented then openly admitted he regretted as it cheats the viewer and treats them as idiots. It also fails as a twist as the viewer can see it coming from a mile away. This film is only scary if you’re a twelve year old girl and even then I think twelve year old girls would rather watch something else. It features some lovely cinematography and some great effects but apart from that, Verónica is the most average horror film of all time, not the scariest.