Nightmare Fuel 2018: Day 15 – Veronica

Day 15 of Nightmare Fuel comes as a fairly strong recommendation … sort of.  Y’see, for the past few months I was hearing some buzz on the Web (do the kids still call it that?) about a new movie on Netflix that was being touted as the scariest ever made.  It was a Spanish film named Veronica, and that was about all I knew about it.  After confusing it with another movie on IMDb (see what happens when you lack information?), I added it to my queue, basically condemning it to a veritable streaming purgatory thanks to my long queue list and a combination of a lack of free time and a proclivity for procrastination.  Nightmare Fuel to the rescue, eh?

The plot takes us back to 1991 Madrid.  Teenager Veronica is shown to be quite the put-upon young lady, what with her mother constantly working at her restaurant, leaving the daughter to care for her two younger sisters and younger brother.  But she’s got extrafamiliar tastes, including music and, apparently, an interest in the esoteric.  For something of a lark, she brings a ouija board to school and conducts a séance with a pair of friends while the rest of the class marvels at a solar eclipse.  To the trio’s surprise, Veronica seems more affected by the séance than the others, and things get wild when lights go crazy and the glass they’re using as a planchet (this isn’t your usual Hasbro Ouija set, mind you) shatters and Vero passes out.  At first things are as normal, but Vero’s life becomes progressively plagued by strange happenings and dark hallucinations.  Did they really summon a demon to our realm?

Now, like I said, there were several outlets calling this the scariest movie ever, but I’m hoping it’s because those outlets haven’t seen many scary movies.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of tension and even fright to be found here, but even in its own possession subgenre it’s beaten by competitors — The Exorcism of Emily Rose springs readily to mind.  Sandra Escacena may not throw it all at the wall like Jennifer Carpenter did, but she shows quite a bit of range, poise, and skill here that far exceeds her young age: she made me believe she was Veronica the whole time, as overworked student and as (understandably) freaked-out victim of possession.  Her efforts elevate writer/director Paco Plaza’s vision above most of the contemporary possession fare and breathe some very welcome life into the seemingly staid and complacent subgenre.  This is easily Plaza’s best work since the original [Rec] (I wasn’t too keen on the sequels), and he deserves the praise he’s been getting: there’s setup, atmosphere, relatable characters, a fairly solid soundtrack (gonna haveta look up some of Héroes del Silencio’s discography sometime), even a twinge of the authentic with the basis in general historic reality (though based on the events surrounding the case of Estefanía Gutiérrez Lázaro, Plaza decided to tell a similar story, rather than fully leach off of potentialities, Amityville style).

So, yeah, Veronica is easily worthy of a watch, but don’t go in with exorbitant expectations.  Hell, I don’t think any film has lived up to the “scariest movie” hype, save maybe Hereditary (and that one’s received enough backlash elsewhere to balance things out).  It’s plenty good, though, plenty good.