In case the impending apocalypse or the sight of front-facing Simpsons aren’t enough to keep you up at night, Netflix have just released a new horror that has everyone losing the plot. Veronica is a Spanish film about a girl who’s raising her siblings because her mum works all the time, and her father died. One day she takes a break from playing parent and decides to conduct a seance via an Ouija board with her friends during a solar eclipse, as you do. Not entirely sure of the supernatural science behind this, but everyone who’s been on Instagram during any sort of unusual lunar event knows that it screws shit up. The blood moon has misaligned my chakra! Something about full moons! Etc.
What follows is a mix of blind nuns, bloody mattresses and flying objects. Sounds terrifying enough, but the horror increases tenfold when you discover this is based on a true story. In 1990 a woman called Estefania Gutierrez Lazaro mysteriously died after playing with an Ouija Board. The Sun reports that she conducted a seance at school, which was stopped by a teacher when smoke apparently started coming out of her nose. In the next six months, she reportedly began suffering seizures, seeing shadowy figures and inexplicably began barking at things. A few months later she was found dead, the cause of which was never explained. There’s a big long article about it on ghosttheory.com, and while we can’t vouch for factual credibility, we can confirm it makes for very creepy reading. And very good horror film fodder.
The film was directed by Paco Plaza, responsible for similarly terrifying REC, about a TV reporter who gets trapped in a building. Somewhat miraculously, enough people have made it to the end of Veronica for it to receive a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes (?) — unusual for a horror film.
On that positive note, if you’re game you can watch the trailer below, and if you’re still game you can watch the whole film on Netflix. Maybe invest in some Nyquil.