Veronica Review

This is a horror, Spanish film that was released in 2017, directed by Paco Plaza. It was screened at the Contemporary World Cinema at Toronto International Film Festival. It’s loosely based on “true events” from a 1991 Vallecas case where Estefania Gutierrez Lazaro died mysteriously after using a ouija board. If you’d like to know more about Estefania and her mysterious ouija board death check it out for yourself. I’d recommend this site https://meaww.com/the-true-story-of-estefania-gutierrez-lazaro-the-girl-behind-netflixs-latest-horror-flick-veronica which goes into depth about Estefania’s possession with videos and article depicting it. If you’re brave enough to watch and read, be my guest!

Veronica is probably the most underrated, best horror film that I’ve seen in a long time. It has potential in being truly scary that’s based off a true event. Now on the scare factor it isn’t to me that scary and this was due to the monster. I think it would’ve been scarier to not know what it was and have it be some old entity that wasn’t visible. There was a lot of potential that the director could’ve taken advantage of to jump-scare the audience but wasted when nothing ended up happening. The story in itself is great, obviously, since it’s based off of a true event. I don’t know how much of the story is taken from this paranormal crime case so I don’t know how much credit I should give to the screen-writer. If it’s all taken from the case then it’s a pretty cheap shot honestly. Also if that’s the case they should’ve just made a documentary about the case and interviewed the family and then incorporate the acting scenes to re-enact the scenarios that took place.

But if the writer created this whole thing up then bravo, well done! The characters were pretty great, I thought the acting was very well done. Especially the girl who play Veronica, she did an awesome job. I think playing the person who’s possessed and scared shitless is always the hardest character to play, so kudos to you, Sandra Escacena! There was some characters that I felt should’ve done more, like Veronica’s best friend should’ve been more scared when Veronica came around and told her from the beginning on what she said. I’m just saying if my friend seized out and then a demonic voice came from her saying she’s going to die today then I would’ve flaked out from school for awhile and be like wearing crosses and shit, telling this bitch she’s possessed.

The Woman of Death, which is just a nickname the students gave to this blind nun was my favorite character but it’s too bad not a whole lot was done with her. They gave a little back story about her which was pretty awesome but SPOILER ALERT, when she sees the demon tagging along Veronica and the camera turns towards it there’s nothing there. Man this would’ve been awesome to showed the audience the demon and how freaky it looks. The entire time I thought that just because she could see the dead and the demons that she would also know a little bit about them but she basically told the poor girl that “Yo, you basically dead. There’s nothing that I or God can do so good luck.”

There was some cool “effects” that the director / editor decided to place in. The effects were pretty cool but pointless, they did nothing to help the audience in further understanding the plot and instead just made it seem like the director just wanted these in to feel cool which brought the scare factor way down. Building and maintaining that “scare” atmosphere is so important to have because that’s what ultimately makes a horror / thriller movie what they are. If you wave the effects, graphics, and camera around you’re going to loose your audience’s interests. At least that’s what it did for me, I wasn’t scared for the upcoming scenes that were going to happen.

Man this film had so much potential and it wasn’t bad, don’t get me wrong. There was a lot of great things that this film have but it just wasn’t scary enough for me. It’s also based off of preferences so this film may have made you shit your pants and for others they were simply bored. I was in-between, there was some parts that almost had me and some parts that were like huh? But what scares me is the cracking of bones, the roars and screams of demonic voices, the weird walking on ceilings and on all four legs, that kind of thing. For some people this doesn’t do it for them but damn does it for myself. There was more dialogue and action in this film rather than the paranormal happening. Whenever it did happened it was here and there but so much time went by that it just wasn’t scary. Again building and maintaining that atmosphere and I just didn’t feel it.

So overall rating 7/10 but scare factor 5/10.

If you have any suggestions on what I should watch and review next comment below and let me know!

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