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.
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| 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.
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.
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