Veronica 2017 Spanish Film

Veronica is a 2017 Spanish horror film directed by Paco Plaza. It was screened in the Contemporary World Cinema section at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival. Loosely based on true events from the 1991 Vallecas case where Estefanía Gutiérrez Lázaro died mysteriously after she used a Ouija board.

Plot

In 1991, Verónica is a 15 year old girl living with her mother and three younger siblings in an apartment in Madrid. Their father has recently passed away and their mother works for long hours at a bar to support the family, leaving Verónica in charge her younger siblings - twins Lucia and Irene, and Antoñito. One morning, Verónica gets the kids ready for school, where everyone is preparing to see the solar eclipse that same day. Before leaving home, she sneaks a photo of her father out of her mother's bedroom closet while she sleeps after a night shift. Verónica's teacher explains how some ancient cultures used eclipses to stage human sacrifices and summon dark spirits. Verónica and her friend Rosa pass notes to each other during class.

While the rest of the school gathers on the roof to view the eclipse, Verónica, Rosa, and their classmate Diana go into the basement to conduct a seance using a Ouija board. Diana wishes contact the spirit of her deceased boyfriend, while Verónica wants to reach out to her father. As the girls begin the seance, the board responds right away. Rosa and Diana pull their hands back as the glass cup becomes too hot to touch, but Verónica's hand remains on it. At the exact moment of the eclipse, the cup shatters, cutting Verónica's finger and dripping blood onto the board. The board splits in half and lit candles fall over and burn an occult book that came with the board. Rosa finds Verónica laying on her back unresponsive, frantically whispering. She suddenly lets out a demonic scream as the lights flicker and passes out. She wakes up in the school nurse's office, who tells her she probably passed out from iron deficiency.

Verónica begins experiencing paranormal occurrences. She is unable to eat her dinner, as if an invisible hand is preventing her. Claw and bite marks start appearing on her body. Toys and electronics turn on by themselves. While bathing Antoñito, she hears strange noises coming from her room. She is locked out of the bathroom, and manages to enter just in time to save Antoñito from being burned by the boiling hot water. That night, she dreams of her father's nude ghost appearing in her room while her sisters hide in her closet. Demonic arms emerge from her bed, and her father transforms into a faceless demon before she wakes up. Rosa begins avoiding Verónica and spends time with Diana instead. Looking for answers, Verónica goes back to the school basement, where she finds the school's elderly blind nun whom the students call "Sister Death." The nun tells her she knows what is going on and scolds Verónica for doing something so dangerous. Sister Death explains to Verónica that the seance attached a dark spirit to her and that she needs to protect her siblings. She tries to compel the spirit to leave Verónica, but nothing happens.

Verónica draws protective Viking symbols and hangs them in the kids' rooms, only for the demon to destroy them. She tries to help Lucia when the spirit tries to choke her, but Lucia says it was Verónica who was choking her. Verónica tells the girls about the dark spirit, prompting her mother to scold her for scaring the kids and tell her to grow up. That night, Verónica dreams that her siblings are eating her and that the sheets become soaked with blood. She wakes up to find she's on her first period. As she scrubs her mattress, she finds burn marks on the underside. After Antoñito tells Verónica that their father will soon come to take him away, she lifts up the kids' mattresses and finds that each one bears a large burn mark in the shape of a human body. She again approaches Sister Death, who tells her that she can force the spirits to leave by doing right what she did wrong. Buying another Ouija kit, Verónica learns that it is important to say goodbye to the spirit at the end of the seance. She asks Rosa and Diana to help her hold another seance, but they refuse. She begs her mother to leave work and come home, but she also refuses.

Desperate, Verónica decides to hold the seance with her young siblings. She tapes the original Ouija board back together and shows her confused siblings what to do. She has Antoñito draw the protective symbols on the walls, but he flips to the wrong page in the occult book and instead draws symbols of invocation. When Verónica begins the seance and tells the spirit that it's time to say goodbye, it replies, "No." Verónica calls the police as the spirit snatches Antoñito. Verónica helps Lucia and Irene escape the building, but returns to rescue her brother. She finds him hiding in her closet, plugging his ears and calling out her name. Verónica realizes she has been possessed by the demon the entire time, and had been harming her siblings under its control. She attempts to end the possession slitting her own throat with a shard of glass, but is prevented from doing so by the demon. The police enter the room to find her being attacked by an invisible force and passing out. The medics carry her and an unharmed Antoñito out of the apartment while a shaken detective observes the scene. As the detective watches a framed photograph of Verónica suddenly catch fire, he is informed that she has died. The detective later writes a report on the incident. It is explained that the movie is based on the true events of the first police report in Spain where an officer certifies having witnessed paranormal activity. 

Film Inspiration

The film was inspired when Estefania Gutierrez Lazaro reportedly suffered hallucinations and seizures after performing the seance at a school in Madrid to try contact her deceased boyfriend and died six months later. Her exact cause of death is a mystery. Her house allegedly became haunted after her death according to the British music magazine NME. The American magazine Newsweek, referenced by NME, is more cautious and while acknowledging that the case is real like the event to the similar pop-culture phenomenon and urban legend The Amityville Horror. In the same magazine director Paco Plaza says that he didn't feel bound to portray the real events clarifying "...the whole story of Veronica and the sisters and Antonito, this little Marlon Brando with glasses, it’s all a vision."  The Telegraph presents a similar case saying about one early report of the events "In hindsight, it all looks clearly staged – and it's surprising that viewers took it seriously at the time."

The film was released on Netflix on 26 February 2018. It has since received positive reviews, including being dubbed "the scariest horror film ever". Erica Russell at NYLON magazine called Verónica a "stylish, impressively well-cast, and atmospheric" horror film. The film currently holds a 89% approval rating on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 18 reviews, with an average rating of 7/10.

 I had also made a post about Estefanía Gutiérrez Lázaro. I included the link if you would like to read that as well.

 http://www.unsolvedmysteries.com/usm552911.html