Veronica, 2017.
Directed by Paco Plaza.
Starring Sandra Escacena, Bruna Gonzalez, and Claudia Pacer.
SYNOPSIS:
Madrid, 1991. A teen girl finds herself besieged by an evil supernatural force after she played Ouija with two classmates.
In 2007 Spanish director Paco Plaza obliterated audiences’ nerves with found-footage zombie horror REC. Co-directed by Jaume Balaguero the movie tore through an increasingly ailing genre with a firm dose of rigorous suspense and explosively gory nastiness as a camera crew accompanying a Madrid firefighting team discover something horrifying lurking in a Madrid apartment block.
Fittingly enough for a country so consumed and burdened by the ghosts of its recent past, Spain has taken the charge in the last decade’s surge of ghostly horror, from The Orphanage to the underrated Julia’s Eyes and beyond. And more than a decade after his breakout hit Plaza himself has gone it alone with Veronica, which purports to take as its basis the first officially police-endorsed case of paranormal activity in Spain’s history. Even if it can’t live up to its more celebrated forebears (or even the ruthlessly innovative REC), Veronica intelligently blurs the line enough between visible horror and psychological unease to keep us guessing throughout.
As per the documented events we pick up with a frantic call made to police in June 1991: a panicked young woman is on the line apparently convinced someone – or something – is in her apartment and endangering her life, as well as that of her three young siblings. The source of the horror teasingly remains off-screen as the lead inspector arrives at the crime scene – heightening the tension of the extended flashback that makes up the narrative.
We’re introduced to adolescent girl Veronica, responsible for her two younger sisters and much younger brother as a result of her workaholic mother who slaves long hours at a local bar. The father is an absent presence, glimpsed only in photographs, and this is what prompts Veronica to try and summon his spirit during an ill-advised school séance with two friends whilst the remainder of the staff and pupils are distracted by a solar eclipse. Not long after it becomes clear that something nasty has entered the apartment and won’t be leaving in a hurry.
Original it isn’t, mashing up practically every hit horror of the last 10 years from The Conjuring to The Babadook to Drag Me To Hell and the forgettable Ouija movies. There are also plenty of overwrought, ripe elements such as a blind school nun nicknamed Sister Death who, of course, can sense the spirits swirling around our central character. An occasionally misjudged score also seems to channel retro John Carpenter synths in a manner that clashes with the relatively sober ‘based only true events’ approach.
Nevertheless with its strong and somewhat ambiguous central performance from Sandra Escacena we’re kept on tenterhooks more than the movie’s grab bag of influences would have us believe. Isolated from her friends out of need to care for her family and pining for her father, Plaza does an effective job in suggesting that Veronica herself is responsible for the chaos that ensues (one especially chilling moment results in her hands being clutched around her sister’s neck, although Veronica claims she was trying to ward off the demon).
Splashes of menstrual blood not only allude to Carrie but also play into that classic horror trope that adolescence brings with it deadly, potentially supernatural changes. The conviction Escacena brings to her role, not to mention the brilliantly naturalistic and often hilariously acute performances from the kids playing her younger siblings, help paper over the fact that we’ve seen a lot of this done before.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Sean Wilson
Originally published October 14, 2017. Updated April 11, 2018.
