The film opens in medias res, with emergency services responding to a call from a young girl made on June 15, 1991. She sounds panicked and screams about something coming to get her brother before the call cuts off.
The film goes back in time three days. Verónica is a 15-year-old girl living with her mother and three young siblings in an apartment in the working-class district of Vallecas, Madrid. Their father recently died and their mother works long hours at a bar to support the family, leaving Verónica in charge of her younger siblings: twins Lucia and Irene, and Antoñito. On the day of the 1991 solar eclipse, her teacher explains how some ancient cultures used eclipses to stage human sacrifices and summon dark spirits.
Verónica and her friends Rosa and Diana go into the basement to conduct a séance using a Ouija board. Verónica wants to reach out to her late father, and Diana her late boyfriend, who died in a motorcycle accident. Rosa and Diana pull their hands back when the glass cup becomes too hot. Verónica's hand remains on it, and at the moment of the eclipse, the cup shatters, cutting her finger and dripping blood onto the board. Verónica becomes unresponsive, whispering something repeatedly, then lets out a demonic scream. She wakes in the school nurse's office, who tells her she probably passed out from iron deficiency.
Verónica begins experiencing paranormal occurrences and her friends avoid her. Looking for answers, she goes back to the school basement and finds the school's elderly blind nun whom the students call Hermana Muerte ('Sister Death'). The nun explains that the séance attached a dark spirit to her and tries to compel the spirit to leave, but nothing happens.
Verónica draws protective Viking symbols for the kids, only for the demon to destroy them. She tries to help Lucia when the spirit chokes her, but Lucia says it was Verónica who was choking her. Verónica wakes up to find that she's on her first period. As she scrubs her mattress, she finds burn marks on the underside. She also finds on each of the kids' mattresses a large burn mark in the shape of a human body. Sister Death tells Verónica that she used to see dark spirits when she was younger, and intentionally blinded herself in an unsuccessful attempt to stop the visions. Verónica reads in an occult magazine that she can force the spirits to leave by doing right what she did wrong as it is important to say goodbye to the spirit at the end of a séance. Verónica asks Rosa and Diana to hold another séance, but they refuse. Rosa reveals that at the séance, Verónica whispered that she herself would die in three days.
Desperate, Verónica decides to hold the séance with her siblings. She has Antoñito draw the protective symbols on the walls, but he flips to the wrong page and instead draws symbols of invocation. During the séance they have to repeatedly sing a melody and decide for an advertising jingle for a brand called "Centella" because it is the only song they all know. When she tells the spirit to say goodbye, it refuses. She calls the police and escapes with her siblings. However, she sees that she is not actually holding Antoñito but had imagined it. Her brother is actually hiding in a closet. She finds him but he won't go with her. Verónica looks at herself in the mirror and sees the demon, realizing 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 by slitting her own throat but is prevented by the demon. The police enter to find her being attacked by an invisible force and passing out. The medics carry her and Antoñito out while a shaken detective observes the scene. As the detective watches a photograph of Verónica suddenly catch fire, he is informed that she has died.
In his official report, he mentions unexplained paranormal activity having occurred in the house. It is explained that the movie is based on the true events of the first police report in Spain where a police officer certifies having witnessed paranormal activity.
The film was inspired when Estefanía Gutiérrez Lázaro (1973–1991) reportedly suffered hallucinations and seizures after performing a séance at a school in Madrid to try to contact her friend's deceased boyfriend who had died six months earlier. Her exact cause of death is a mystery. Her house allegedly became haunted after her death according to the British magazine NME.[5] The American magazine Newsweek, referenced by NME, is more cautious and while acknowledging that the case is real, likens 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 Antoñito, this little Marlon Brando with glasses, it’s all a vision."[6]
Production
The screenplay was penned by Paco Plaza alongside Fernando Navarro.[7] The film was produced by Apache Films alongside El Expediente La Película AIE, with the participation of RTVE and support from ICAA.[8] The score was composed by Eugenio Mira, credited under the pseudonym Chucky Namanera.[2][9] The film's soundtrack also features the songs "Maldito duende", "Entre dos tierras" and "Hechizo" by Héroes Del Silencio (all from their album Senderos de traición (1990)) and an advertising jingle for a brand called "Centella".
Release
Verónica originally released on 25 August 2017 in Spain and was selected for the lineup of the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival's Contemporary World Cinema section.[10] In addition, the film was released in eight other countries between December 2017 and February 2018.[11]
The rights for the film were later bought by streaming platform Netflix where it was released in early March 2018[12] and became a small hit.[6][13]
Prequel
A prequel film titled Sister Death (Hermana Muerte), directed by Paco Plaza and starring Aria Bedmar, was released on Netflix in October 2023.[14]
Reception
Box office
In Spain the film grossed $4,212,203, and $1,910,886 in other territories, for a worldwide total of $6,123,089.[11]
Critical response
The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports an 88% approval rating from 33 critic reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "A scarily effective horror outing, Veronica proves it doesn't take fancy or exotic ingredients to craft skin-crawling genre thrills."[15]
Jonathan Holland from The Hollywood Reporter gave a negative review of the film and wrote, "The real horror in Veronica is not in the CGI visuals, or in Pablo Rosso's frantic cinematography, or in the aural bombardment of sound effects and music; it’s in the relationship between the children". Overall, he sums up his film review with the bottom line "Thick on chills, thin on psychology."[16]
Shortly after the release of Verónica on Netflix, Jordan Crucchoila of Vulture countered other reviewers who believed that Verónica was the scariest movie on the streaming service: "In our estimation, Veronica is not that scary. It’s a worthy effort, but as far as witch-board movies go, you’ll get more out of Ouija 2: Origin of Evil." She added that the film had "some great set-piece scares, and the movie’s most disturbing moment is pretty damn good."[13] Ed Potton of The Times gave the film a 2 out of 5, and wrote "A considerable buzz online suggested that this Spanish horror might arrest the recent run of iffy Netflix movies. Sadly, it doesn't."[17] Dennis Harvey of Variety wrote that the film's ideas "aren’t ultimately original enough or its scares potent enough to suggest Plaza wouldn’t benefit from trying his directorial hand at someone else’s screenplay."[18] Referring to the Rotten Tomatoes score, Paul Tassi from Forbes magazine wrote, "If I was scoring the movie myself I’d probably give it a 6 out of 10, “fresh,” but not exactly stunning."[12]
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