Movie Review: Veronica

Veronica ** / *****

Directed by: Paco Plaza.

Written by: Fernando Navarro and Paco Plaza.

Starring: Sandra Escacena (Verónica), Bruna González (Lucía), Claudia Placer (Irene), Iván Chavero (Antoñito), Ana Torrent (Ana), Consuelo Trujillo (Hermana Muerte), Ángela Fabián (Rosa), Carla Campra (Diana).

 

In horror films there is a difference between a slow burn and the downright bland – and while that difference can vary by viewer, I’d argue that the Spanish horror film Veronica is much more of the later. The film was released on Netflix earlier this month – after being on the festival circuit last fall – and after receiving some attention as a film Netflix claimed it was a film so scary that people couldn’t finish it. That, and the fact that I admired the first two [Rec] films co-directed by Paco Plaza who made this film, made me curious to check it out. Disappointingly though Veronica is basically a standard issue possession film, and one that hits basically every cliché imaginable during its runtime. The climax is pretty good – but it takes a long time to get there.

 

The film takes place in 1991 in Madrid (it is loosely based on a real case) and the title character, played by Sandra Escacena is a 15 year-old-girl, who basically has to act as a parent to her younger twin sisters, and much younger brother. Their father is dead, and their mother basically works non-stop at a local bar. It falls onto Veronica to get the kids up, feed them, get them to school, and then bring them home, feed them and put them to bed – all while going to school herself. One day, during an eclipse, she goes down to the basement of her school (spoiler alert – the basement is creepy) with her two friends and an Ouija board to try and contact her dad. She contacts something alright, as things go horribly awry, in a way that she basically does not remember. She spends the rest of the film is a mounting state of paranoia, as she starts having dark visions of a dark man in their apartment, threatening her siblings. Her mom doesn’t believe her and her best friend is creeped out by her because of what happened with the Ouija board. The only person who seems to give her any advice at all is an old, blind nun at the school – but she’s more on hand to provide some creepy moments during the long (long) hour between the Séance and the climax.

 

Basically, Veronica hits ever note you expect to see in a possession movie from the innocent girl introduction of Veronica, right up until the climax. As a movie like The Conjuring proved a few years ago, a gifted director can make those clichés feel fresh and scary again, but it takes some work. The best thing about Veronica is the lead performance by newcomer Sandra Escacena, who really does sell her mounting paranoia and terror, as well as her relationship with her siblings, that really is deeply felt and important to her. She’s a find for sure.

 

Other than a decent sense of place though, Plaza never really figures out to make much of the movie all that scary. I understand that he’s going for a slow burn here – gradually building up the tension before finally releasing it with the climax. But slow burns work when each scene builds on the last, and there are some genuinely unexpected moments in the film. That doesn’t really happen in Veronica, which has some okay individual scenes, but they don’t build on each other – and every moment is too neatly telegraphed in advance.

 

Yes, the climax mostly work – even if, like the rest of the movie, you know what’s coming before the film does. But other than that, Veronica is basically a dull, predictable horror film that plays out exactly how you expect it to. I suspect that some people turned it off on Netflix because they were bored.