
I truly love a good possession movie and there are a lot of them, many not so good, but I faithfully watch them all. I bought into the hype of Veronica a couple days ago as Rotten Tomatoes gave it a perfect score and it seemed like every horror group I follow was posting some click-bait about viewers needing to turn off the movie halfway through. I read up a little on the premise in that it’s set in Spain and follows Veronica, a high school girl, looking to conjure her dead father’s spirit through an Ouija board. She instead conjures a demon who violently possesses her AND during an eclipse no less. Plus, she has an adorable family whom she must protect while she battles the harrowing demonic visions and monsters that afflict her. All of this and I haven’t gotten to the scariest part of the whole thing. Apparently, Veronica is based on real events of a girl who died after playing with an Ouija board. So yea, I was ready to watch.
There have been a couple movies in recent past about the Ouija board that I thought were just okay and what I think was missing among other things, for me, was depicting the actual board game as something to be frightened by. There were plenty of creepy things that occurred surrounding the game, but I almost forgot it was about Ouija at all. I wanted to see more of a connection even if it’s not an easy thing to do. As someone who doesn’t believe Ouija boards hold any evil power, I was interested to see if they would be able to take the hokey-ness out of it. I liked that the the board look super creepy and its design was ancient and dark and red. I also appreciated that there was more of a physicality to it, when it cracked in half during the first séance, I had this overwhelming feeling like something was terribly wrong. I felt part of that experience even more. And then I was ready to see some wild body manipulation and speaking in tongues, possession shit! It’s a small note that probably doesn’t matter to most people, but I appreciated that they made the Ouija board a little scary again.
I was getting a heavy dose of It Follows vibes from the stripped down, subtle and suspenseful scares to the spine tingling score. The pacing was well-balanced and shot so realistically that it felt like this could have actually happened. A nice way to allude to the alleged true events the film is based on.
The most compelling facet of Veronica is her commitment to raising and protecting her younger brother and sisters. You instantly care about each of them and even though Veronica is enduring things like hallucinations, night terrors and haunting voices, she continues to make them her priority. It was the one uplifting sentiment I could take away among the waves of fear and anxiety. Veronica freaked me out and most notably lead actress, Sandra Escacena, was mesmerizing in her ability to portray a typical, sweet, teenage girl and suddenly flip to a possessed, demonic entity. Reminded me somewhat of Ashley Bell's performance in The Last Exorcism. There are some amazing possession, visual effects they do with her too which was the highlight for me.
You can watch Veronica on Netflix and maybe don't watch alone ;)
There have been a couple movies in recent past about the Ouija board that I thought were just okay and what I think was missing among other things, for me, was depicting the actual board game as something to be frightened by. There were plenty of creepy things that occurred surrounding the game, but I almost forgot it was about Ouija at all. I wanted to see more of a connection even if it’s not an easy thing to do. As someone who doesn’t believe Ouija boards hold any evil power, I was interested to see if they would be able to take the hokey-ness out of it. I liked that the the board look super creepy and its design was ancient and dark and red. I also appreciated that there was more of a physicality to it, when it cracked in half during the first séance, I had this overwhelming feeling like something was terribly wrong. I felt part of that experience even more. And then I was ready to see some wild body manipulation and speaking in tongues, possession shit! It’s a small note that probably doesn’t matter to most people, but I appreciated that they made the Ouija board a little scary again.
I was getting a heavy dose of It Follows vibes from the stripped down, subtle and suspenseful scares to the spine tingling score. The pacing was well-balanced and shot so realistically that it felt like this could have actually happened. A nice way to allude to the alleged true events the film is based on.
The most compelling facet of Veronica is her commitment to raising and protecting her younger brother and sisters. You instantly care about each of them and even though Veronica is enduring things like hallucinations, night terrors and haunting voices, she continues to make them her priority. It was the one uplifting sentiment I could take away among the waves of fear and anxiety. Veronica freaked me out and most notably lead actress, Sandra Escacena, was mesmerizing in her ability to portray a typical, sweet, teenage girl and suddenly flip to a possessed, demonic entity. Reminded me somewhat of Ashley Bell's performance in The Last Exorcism. There are some amazing possession, visual effects they do with her too which was the highlight for me.
You can watch Veronica on Netflix and maybe don't watch alone ;)