Verónica
Spain 2017
Written by Fernando Navarro & Paco Plaza
Directed by Paco Plaza
Watched on 23.09.2017

“Verónica” offers very typical horror-fare, but since it’s well made and also quite elegant and charming, I have a hard time being too angry with it. It almost seemed like a spanish “Conjuring”-movie to me, with its very similar setup (e.g. claiming to be based on true events, and during the credits even showing real crime scene pictures), but also the way the scary moments are staged. Thus, fans of that particular horror franchise should feel right at home here. It’s very competently shot by Paco Plaza (of “[Rec]”-fame), has a stunning lead actress in Sandra Escacena, and a couple of really well staged and pretty scary scenes, without having to rely on cheap jump scares with the volume turned up to acute hearing loss-levels. Granted, I would have liked if they’d have kept the question of what really happened here more open. There would be a nice interpretation of Veró dealing with paranoid schizophrenia that unfortunately, due to the filmmakers shoving the fact that something actually supernatural happened down our throats, never really registers. It’s too obvious that, even if Plaza and Navarro shouldn’t believe in a supernatural explanation themselves, they definitely want to sell it to their audience. Personally, I would have preferred it if I’d have been allowed to make up my own mind. Which is a flaw (and another similarity) that it shares with the aforementioned “Conjuring”-films. Overall, while “Verónica” definitely is nothing special, it at least is very effective in what it wants to be – and that definitely counts for much.
7/10

IMDB