Review: Is Veronica on Netflix as scary as everyone is saying?

You may have seen the claim that there is a movie so scary, it makes watchers turn it off halfway through, but is Veronica as scary as people say it is?

Anyone on social media lately has been seeing a movie on Netflix with some big claims. So far, it’s claimed that the movie is just so scary that most people watching turn the movie off halfway through. With a reputation like that, I had no choice but to give in and watch the damn thing. According to the movie, this is based on actual events and includes information from the police report.

I wanted to put it to the test; could I make it through Veronica without turning it off?

Turns out….I could. Now that’s not to say that it’s not a good movie, on the contrary, but it wasn’t that scary. This 2017 feature comes to us from Madrid, Spain. It is a subtitled movie but that doesn’t affect the experience. Veronica was directed by Paco Plaza (REC and REC2) and written by Plaza and Fernando Navarro. It follows a 15-year-old Veronica (Sandra Escacena) who performs a séance with a good ol’ Ouija board during a solar eclipse, because why not?

Image courtesy of Television Espanola/Apaches Entertainment/Expediente La Pelicula/A.I.E.

After the séance goes badly she goes home to take care of her twin sisters, Lucia (Bruna Gonzalez) and Irene (Claudia Placer) and her little brother Antonito (Ivan Chavero) because their mother works all the time since their father died. Over the next three days, she starts seeing things and weird occurrences begin happening in the house. The family is obviously pretty catholic so I’m going to say….demons.

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Poor Veronica has to handle the entire burden on her own, not just in the unfortunate haunting but in her life. She’s a teenage girl in 1991 that spends most of her time being the mother of the family. Her whole goal with the séance was to try and talk with her father, but it seems her father wasn’t the one that answered her call.

The effects in this movie are gorgeous, truly. While the use of shadow effects can border on cheesy, the rest of it is clean and seamless. The shots are ingenious and artistic and there are instances of seeing the characters through objects or in the reflections of mirrors. It’s smart, I’ll give it that. The dialogue and character behavior seems very realistic and no character seems like a caricature of a personality type. The soundtrack is epic sounding considering the slow burning action occurring but it is very reminiscent of old 90’s thrillers.

Image courtesy of Television Espanola/Apaches Entertainment/Expediente La Pelicula/A.I.E.

Next: Top 5 'true story' horror films (that are actually BS)

Really the only negative thing I have to say about the movie is that it just isn’t scary. I found that I felt more anxiety regarding the children more than fear of a monster. It was more a sad story of a girl on her own than a horror, in my opinion. Regardless, I recommend this movie. It’s paced nicely, with simple but effective special effects and does have its thrilling moments. It’s available to watch on Netflix.

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