“Is it all in that pretty little head of yours?

What goes on in that place in the dark?”

-Elvis Costello “Veronica”

THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

VERONICA is either the scariest movie ever made, or an overrated piece of crap depending on what corner of the internet you find yourself in. To be honest, I didn’t learn of the movie’s existence until I saw a couple of articles claiming that the movie was so scary that people were shutting it off halfway through. Then I saw a bunch of people reacting to those articles, calling people the people who shut it off names, and the film overrated. This is seemingly how things go now. A movie is released. Then the people who see it early like it, which causes people to get hyped, or skeptical. Then some of the hyped/skeptical people watch it (or in some cases don’t) and scream about how dumb, or biased, the people are that liked it. It’s all really annoying, honestly, and VERONICA has become one of those movies where I almost don’t want to admit to liking it in a public setting for fear of someone calling me a moron, or something. I guess I’ll end this paragraph by saying that I liked VERONICA quite a bit. Please don’t call me a moron. Yet.

I’ll admit that when I saw the “THIS IS THE SCARIEST MOVIE EVER MADE” articles, I rolled my eyes, but horror is similar to comedy in that they both can be incredibly subjective. What one person finds funny/scary, another person might not find funny/scary. I don’t really get scared by movies much anymore. I’m really only scared of snakes, or getting hit by a car — or maybe getting hit by a car driven by snakes. Either way, my interest in VERONICA was piqued, especially when I saw that the movie was directed by Paco Plaza and already up on Netflix– which is really what annoyed more than anything.

Paco Plaza is one of the men behind the original REC series. The original REC is another movie that I remember having the same “THIS IS THE SCARIEST MOVIE I’VE EVER SEEN” buzz around it’s release. I remember liking it when I finally got around to seeing it, and I think it belongs near the top of the found-footage heap. I guess what agitated me the most about this already being up on Netflix is that for months I couldn’t get away from the advertisements for the new Max Landis flick, but I had to be alerted to a new movie by the guy who did REC by people screaming at each other on the internet. I understand that this movie was never going to get the advertising push that something like THE CLOVERFIELD PARADOX received–and maybe word of mouth is the best way to promote a film like this– but come on now. At least shoot me an e-mail or something.

Anyway, I do not think VERONICA  is the scariest movie ever made, but I do think that it’s a pretty damn good horror movie, and an interesting one to chew on. VERONICA is one of those “based on a true story” style films that dramatizes events that may, or may not, have happened. I’ve always liked this style of film, as there is an element of hucksterism that I think is charming– if maybe a bit unethical and crass– and fits well within the horror genre. I guess it is kind of based on a true story. Here’s a link if you want to read more about the events that inspired the film.  A bunch of horror movies are rooted in things that actually happened though, so I always just look at these things as marketing gimmicks. Marketing gimmicks that I like, by the way.

Here’s the lowdown on what happens in the film: Veronica is a fifteen year old girl living at home with her mother and three siblings, but as it’s made clear in the beginning of the film when she is shown getting her brothers and sisters ready for school, it’s mostly just her and her three siblings, as their mother spends a lot of time away from home. Veronica handles this responsibility well, and is still able to maintain a social life herself while attending Catholic school. One afternoon during a solar eclipse, Veronica and two of her fellow schoolmates sneak away to the schools basement to perform an experiment in trying to contact the other side– Veronica, specifically, is trying to contact her recently deceased father. This does not go as planned — as these things are wont to do — and Veronica is forced to deal with the repercussions. Plot-wise this is pretty standard supernatural/possession style stuff, but thankfully VERONICA goes some interesting places while working its way through said plot.

Horror movies can be subjective, and not just in how people react to them, but the actual form of horror can be subjective as well. The audience watching a horror movie usually sees things through the lens of the people closest to the events unfolding within a film. This is especially common in “possession” films, when the audience takes the journey with the character being possessed by an outside force. When a character dominates the point-of-view of a film, their worldview is emphasized, causing the audience to see things from that perspective, and empathize with with them, so that when things go south, the audience feels that impact even more. The audience isn’t a group of objective observers, as it sees things from the perspective of the characters directly affected by the happenings of the plot. In a lot of cases the audiences knows as much, or as little, as the films protagonist(s) knows, and emotionally feels the same things that the protagonist feels. This is something that is true in VERONICA.

We see the vast majority of the film from Veronica’s perspective, both for reasons of empathy, and for reasons of plot that I won’t delve into for fear of spoiling too much. We are with Veronica when she is getting her siblings ready for school, and we are with her with her as the supernatural elements of the story come into play. We are also with her in her more private moments, like when Veronica stares longingly through the window at her neighbor. We don’t see the film from the Mother’s POV, or a detective investigating what’s going on–we are with Veronica, and we feel what she feels. Whether she’s a reliable, or an unreliable narrator is up to us, but her worldview is our worldview.

Another way we see the world through Veronica’s eyes is through religion, and the moments that deal in religion are some of the film’s strongest for me. VERONICA is a film steeped in Catholicism, but it’s main character isn’t deeply religious. How religious can you really be at 15 years old? Most 15 year olds attending Catholic school are sent there by their parents, a decision that many times can be tied back to location. If Veronica were born in Israel, she would probably be Jewish. India-Buddhist. Afghanistan-Muslim, and so-on. But Veronica was born– and lives– in Spain, a country that is 70% Catholic, so she attends Catholic school. Veronica’s world has been steeped in the beliefs, and iconography, of the Catholic church – that’s her worldview – and during the run-time of VERONICA, it’s ours as well.

There are a couple different ways VERONICA explores religion, with one of the ways being the relationship between religion (Catholicism in this case) and repression, as Veronica is forced to hide much of her burgeoning sexuality throughout the film. Veronica is on the verge of becoming a woman, and without spoiling specific things that happen in the film, there are themes played with similar to those that can be found in CARRIE. The possession of Veronica can be read as a metaphor for some unknown force overtaking the body, much like what happens to a young woman around her age. If that is the case, then the existence of the Catholic church, and it’s symbols, and rituals, can be seen as a force that is trying– and ultimately failing– to keep her flourishing womanhood at bay.

VERONICA also analyzes how we use religion to contextualize the parts of the universe that are beyond our understanding, and the inherit arrogance that comes along with that.  Early in the film one of Veronica’s teachers shows her class a slide of an ancient tribe performing a human sacrifice during a solar eclipse. Here is the dialogue from that scene:

Superstition has given many explanations for eclipses. Primitive cultures believed  that the sky reflected what happened on Earth. So they believed that during eclipses darkness reigned over light. In many cultures they thought that eclipses were a good time for sacrifices.

This example used by the nun is obviously a pretty incomplete theory from a primitive culture, but VERONICA is making the statement that much of Catholicism is the result of a primitive culture trying to make sense of the universe.  There is an arrogance in the sisters statement– particularly when she drops the “superstition” line–and it’s an arrogance that permeates Veronica’s psyche as well. In the film, Veronica is trying to contact her recently deceased father by using a primitive object herself: A Ouija board. Veronica’s idea of the afterlife– or the other side– is steeped in years of Catholic schooling. There’s heaven, and there’s hell, and she believes that it can be something dipped into, and played around with using the tools available to her. Throughout the course of the film, the idea that the afterlife is something to be toyed around with is proven to be misguided, but within the context of the film, the belief in “the other side” isn’t necessarily wrong, it’s just incomplete. There is an afterlife, we just have no business messing with it. That idea is exemplified in one of the film’s side characters: Sister Death.

Sister Death is the coolest damn character in the whole movie, and it’s not just because of her sweet-ass nickname. She’s blind, she smokes all the time, she hangs out at windows all creepy-like, and she says stuff like “God has nothing to do with it”. That’s some Punisher shit right there. In addition to being rad as hell, Sister Death is interesting because she’s still a nun. She recognizes that things like crosses and amulets aren’t going to work once the veil to the other side is pierced, but she’s still a believer. VERONICA seems to be saying that there is something else out there, but the religions and belief systems that are the lens through which we filter it are still primitive. Once again, those beliefs aren’t necessarily wrong, but they are incomplete.

People watch horror movies for different reasons. Some people watch them to be scared, and that’s totally cool, but what scares someone is totally subjective, and I can’t argue with whether or not you find a movie scary. As the nun states during her presentation of the ancient tribe’s sacrifice, “It’s interesting because it’s subjective. It depends on the subject looking at it.”. If you didn’t like VERONICA because it wasn’t scary– or if you thought it was the scariest movie you’ve ever seen– that is a perfectly valid point-of-view, and it isn’t wrong, but it might also be incomplete.