79) Veronica (2017)

"It's not who you want to talk to. It's who you talk to."

Director

Paco Plaza

Cast

Sandra Escacena - Veronica

Bruna Gonzalez - Lucia

Ivan Chavero - Antonito

Claudia Placer - Irene

Angela Fabian - Rosa

Carla Campra - Diana

When it comes to ghosts, hauntings, and our runaway imaginations with all of that, it's funny how we find safety in numbers. 

People generally presume ghosts aren't as scary when we're with company. Fear is conquered with company.

I've often wondered what spirits think of that. Are they less prone or discouraged to intentionally spook us if we're with a buddy?

The 2017 movie from Spain, Veronica, proves (maybe) that ghosts just don't care how many are in a bunch if they want to scare or possess someone. 

This movie is a condensed version of the alleged true events of demonic obsession and possession centered around a teenage girl named Estefania Guttierez Lazaro that took place back in the 1980s into the 1990s in the Vallecas municipality near Madrid, Spain. 

Lazaro and her family supposedly suffered a wide range of paranormal demonic attacks and hauntings after playing with a Ouija board with her friends during school one day. Among this phenomenon, family members claimed they saw dark, human shaped figures roam freely through their apartment. Lazaro suffered nightmares, injuries to her body caused by unknown or unseen sources, and disembodied voices among other things.

What makes this supposed ghost case unique is that it's the first case in Spain to be documented by the National Police as officers evidently witnessed some of these paranormal occurrences. 

The film opens with the ending (in media res) as we see police respond to a call from a young girl screaming that someone is coming for her brother, and that this someone is in the apartment.

When police arrive, they find kids in the middle of the street as rain pours down.

The police enter the apartment and see something off camera that puts them in shock.

The movie cuts back to three days prior, where the audience sees 15-year old Veronica (Sandra Escacena), living with her over-worked mother and three younger siblings in an apartment located in Vallecas. 

We learn her father previously died which forces Veronica to care for the apartment and her siblings, Lucia, Irene, and Antonito while attending a Catholic high school as her mother works long hours.

On this particular day, the school is anticipating a solar eclipse, and students are preparing to watch with special viewing glasses. 

During class, one of the nuns teaching at the high school discusses how some ancient cultures would conduct human sacrifices and attempt to summon demons during such eclipses. 

When it's time for students to go up to the school roof to view the eclipse, Veronica and her friends, Rosa and Diana, sneak into the school basement to conduct a séance with a Ouija board. 

Veronica hopes to contact her late father through the spirit board. And Diana wants to see if she can contact her dead boyfriend.

As soon as they place their hands on the glass which they're using in place of a planchet, it begins moving immediately. 

However Diana and Rosa pull their hands back claiming the glass is too hot to touch. But Veronica keeps her hands where they are, and starts to go into a trance. 

The glass then shatters at the same moment as the eclipse. It cuts Veronica's hand, and blood drips onto the board. 

Veronica, still in a trance, begins whispering incoherently. 

Bruna Gonzalez, Sandra Escacena, Claudia Placer, and
Ivan Chavero 

As Rosa leans her ear closer to figure out what she's whispering. Veronica screams in a voice not her own. Her mouth is open wider than humanly possible. She then wakes up in the nurse's office.

The nurse tells her she passed out probably from an iron deficiency. 

After this, paranormal activity begins occurring in her apartment. 

Strange noises, objects moving on their own, apparitions, bites and claw marks appearing on her body slowly escalates. Veronica desperately tries to find a way to make it stop. 

In one instance, she sneaks back into the school basement to search for something that might help her.

Veronica finds a blind nun, whom students refer to as "Sister Death" in the basement having a cigarette. 

Through some sort of extrasensory perception, she knows what Veronica has done and admonishes her for it. 

She tells the girl that a dark spirit is attached to her which she invited through the séance.

The nun attempts to dispel the dark spirit from Veronica, but to no avail. 

All she can tell her is to "right" what she did wrong, which is to properly end the séance with the other two girls so the evil spirits can go back where they belong. Evidently, they didn't end their spirit session.

Veronica does what she can to right the wrong she committed, only to end up in what we saw in the beginning. 

What makes the movie chilling is the back story behind it. Veronica relies mainly on that.

If the movie wasn't based on an alleged true story, I think it would fall fully among all the other easily overlooked horror thrillers that rely on jump scares, demons, and eerie looking nuns. 

To the movie's credit, it does try to present an overall accurate depiction of what witnesses say went on during the case centering around Estefania Guttierez Lazaro. 

The movie manages to scare, and maintain a level of suspense and fear from beginning to end. The ending makes me want to go back and watch to see if I can catch what wasn't real. It left me thinking maybe some of the story wasn't what I thought it was. It gives a good idea of what the Lazaro family may have experienced in the real case. 

But nothing really stands out as memorable outside of elements being based, albeit loosely, on the true story. Without that, it's just another paranormal movie. I didn't find much about it impressive except for that "what if" factor.

Some parts, especially "Sister Death" struck me as cliche'. The blind nun who can see with some sort of second sight. 

I don't believe the actually story had any such nuns. Rather, the real family consulted some charlatan physic who claimed the family was being haunted by a demonic entity named "Crapula." I kid you not! Thankfully, none of this Crapula was included in the movie. "Sister Death" was at least more engrossing.   

I think the true story is certainly intriguing, regardless of whether people who read the true tale believe in ghosts or not. This movie just gives a basic visual of the actual story. And the movie's ending left an otherwise typical spooky ghost movie on a somewhat thought provoking note. It did make me want to go back and watch Veronica again to see if I missed something.  

I think I understand why some horror/ thriller movies begin with the ending, and then start at the beginning to bring the audience along in order to see how the characters got to the situation we saw at the beginning.

I suppose it's a tactic to build up the unbelievable parts of the story. A movie told in media res can be effective at times, creating a tension when audiences go along the main character's journey and see how events can lead to an extraordinary conclusion. After all, the audiences has insight the main character doesn't. 

It does start things off on a frightening note with images that easily spur the audience's imagination. What happened? How'd these characters get to this terrifying predicament? Well, now I have to watch this and find out. It's a story-telling tool that can't afford to leave an audience disappointed. If it does, the whole movie is ruined. 

I wouldn't say Veronica disappoints. It left me wondering what was real and what wasn't. Despite that, the whole movie felt a little too underwhelming overall.

This movie seems like it could be a part of The Conjuring universe - movies based on the alleged paranormal cases investigated by famed Demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren. 

Fans of such films, as well as the paranormal in general, might find Veronica an intriguing, scary, and a worthwhile movie.

78) The Old Dark House (1932)

"We make our own electric light here, and we are not very good at it. Pray, don't be alarmed if they go out altogether."

Director

James Whale 

Cast

Boris Karloff - Morgan

Melvyn Douglas - Penderel 

Raymond Massey - Philip Waverton

Gloria Stuart - Margaret Waverton

Charles Laughton - Sir William Porterhouse

Ernest Thesiger - Horace Femm

Eva Moore - Rebecca Femm

When it comes to horror movies, I have a particular love for stories that take place in old houses that aren't what they seem on the outside. In other words, a house can be ordinary on the outside, but a labyrinth of trepidation and unsettling horror on the inside. I love that.

"Sometimes in is out" Alice said in the 1991 movie The People Under the Stairs, directed by Wes Craven.

That movie, along with titles such as the horror comedy Nothing But Trouble and The Boy present a frightening atmosphere were the main characters might be able to escape the dangers within but are still trapped inside its walls. They might gain their freedom, but they'll had to pay some kind of eternal price, possibly part of their sanity. 

Life can no longer remain the same somehow or another. This scenario adds more to the story of the scary monster chasing its victims. It adds to the turmoil. It creates that necessary sense of agitation on top of the victim's dread and anxiety. Before they can get away, they have to get out. Or they can get away, but they still need to get out. And that's the goal.

The 1932 horror comedy The Old Dark House has been sitting in my movie que for a while now for that reason. Of course, Boris Karloff's presence in the movie has much to do with it, too. 

And it was director by James Whale, who later directed Karloff in 1935's Frankenstein. Whale also directed Gloria Stuart, also starring in this film, in his masterpiece movie (and my personal favorite Universal Monster movie) The Invisible Man.

The Old Dark House also stars Charles Laughton who famously portrayed Quasimodo in the 1939 movie The Hunchback of Notre Dame. 

While I'm on the tangent of film cast, I'll add for good measure that English actor Ernest Thesiger, who plays Horace Femm in this movie, also plays the undertaker in the 1951 movie A Christmas Carol with Alastair Sim - one of my favorite adaptations of Charles Dickens's story. 

Thesiger also plays Dr. Pretorius in The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) which was also directed by.....wait for it.....James Whale.

So, there's a good amount of legendary horror history in this one film. 

Adapted from the 1927 novel Benighted by J.B. Priestly, The Old Dark House starts off with husband and wife Philip (Raymond Massey) and Margaret Waverton (Gloria Stuart), along with their sarcastic friend Roger Penderel (Melvyn Douglas) driving through Welsh country as a deluge of a rainstorm is pouring down. 

Philip is doing all he can not to get stuck in the flooded road. It's dark, stormy, and late at night when they come upon an old house. 

Desperate, they stop there with hopes of finding shelter. 

Luckily, the tenants are home. 

The servant of the house, Morgan (Boris Karloff), bearded, scarred and stoic, opens the door a crack and peers through.

Despite his menacing appearance, he lets them and goes to get the master of the house.

Horace Femm, a lanky and skeletal looking man, greets them and reluctantly allows them to stay. He gives the group a tour of the house, and tells them he lives there with his sister Rebecca (Eva Moore). 

Rebecca escorts Margaret to her room, and starts berating her about being sinful. She pushes Margaret almost to tears. 

Gloria Stuart in The Old Dark House

She also mentions to Margaret that her 102-year old father, Sir Roderick Femm, also lives in the home. 

There's an unsettling heaviness inside the house. It's apparent the moment Morgan answers the door. 

The intrusive guests are invited to supper, during which time others knock on the door. 

Sir William Porterhouse (Charles Laughton), accompanied by a chorus girl named Gladys DuCane (Lillian Bond) stop in for shelter. 

Soon, everyone is chatting it up over by the fire place. During everyone's conversation, Gladys and Roger start having a talking on their own. 

She says her real last name is Perkins. And then they head out to his car to grab a bottle whiskey. It's obvious, of course, they have more on their mind than just drinking whiskey, though it'll help them do what it is they want to do. (*whispers* each other) 

Meanwhile, the storm cuts the lights out. Rebecca asks Horace to go upstairs and grab a lamp from the top floor.

Horace reluctantly obliges, but tells Philip to go and get it instead claiming he's scared to go upstairs.

When Philip finds the lamp on a small table, he notices a locked door. He then hears a voice coming from the room. 

At the same time, William assists Rebecca in closing windows, and Margaret is left by herself in the dining room.

Suddenly, Morgan approaches her, drunk and starts attacking her. She screams and runs up stairs as Philip is heading down with the lamp.

He throws it at Morgan, causing him to fall down the stairs.

Back in the car, Roger and Gladys are about to get it on as they nestle close with their whiskey...and each other. Their conversation goes right to flirting. Gladys suggests the two live together, which Roger agrees without any consideration.

She insists to him that her relation with Porterhouse is purely on friendly terms. And that's good enough for Roger. 

When they head back to the house to tell Porterhouse what they've just decided, he takes it surprisingly well. 

Philip and Margaret go to check out the locked room where Philip heard the voice earlier. 

When they're able to get inside, they find very old Roderick lying in bed. 

Barely hanging on to life, he tells the two about a terrifying secret within the house that ends up almost killing everyone at once. 

I've seen some movie sights categorize this movie as a horror comedy. In a 2018 article from the Irish Times on the film's restoration, writer Donald Clark calls it James Whale's "funniest horror film." Even considering the decade The Old Dark House was made in, nothing in the story line or dialogue, save for a few comedic quips to lighten the mood at times (that's not uncommon in horror movies, even today) doesn't seem sufficient enough to categorize it as a comedy. 

It's a movie that was filmed prior to the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship guidelines. That comes across at times, as I thought to myself a few times "I bet that was scandalous for its day." 

Once considered a lost film, The Old Dark House has claimed a rightful title of "cult classic." Though I have yet to read the story it's based on, the movie does possess a bit of a pulp fiction feel to it. The setup is just begging for quick and easy seductive entertainment. I could easily see this story told on the pages of an EC Comic like Tales from the Crypt or Vault of Horror all the way down to the movies simple yet somehow alluring title. Maybe that's where the comedy is?

Boris Karloff as Morgan.

The Old Dark House captivated my attention throughout. It's scary in all the traditional ways- a dark and stormy night, and an unfamiliar old house filled with shadows.

I see this as a foundational movie in the horror genre with its use of eccentric characters, religious infatuation, unsuspecting guests, sexual proclivity, and the emphasis of shadows. 

The scene in which Rebecca takes it upon herself to chastise Margaret about her lewd ways based on her dressing in "satin and silks," the camera focuses on Rebecca's reflection in the warped mirrors hanging over the vanity as she rambles on.  When Margaret finally tells her to leave, she looks at her own reflection in the same warped mirrors as Rebecca's words and skewed reflections run through her mind. And then she begins to panic over herself, and struggles to open the door and run out of the bedroom. 

It's a simple and effective scene in portraying human frailty that results from fallen human nature. Margaret sees her own reflection and tries to run from it. 

Rebecca doesn't see her warped reflection while she's berating Margaret. However, when Rebecca leaves the room, she looks at her self in the warped mirror to make sure she looks presentable.

Even though this movie isn't as scary as other horror movies of the same period, it's a memorable picture. 

Generally protagonists in a horror movie will escape their horrific situation at a certain cost. But they still escape. The Old Dark House ends on a happy note which may leave some horror fans in the audience a little unsatisfied. The point is that people sometimes have to endure the dark and stormy night before they find their true selves, and maybe come out better in the morning. So, it makes sense to include a happy ending. The darkest hour is before the dawn, as they say. 

Maybe horror comedy isn't an accurate category for The Old Dark House. Psychological horror is more appropriate. It's a movie I recommend.