Thursday, October 11, 2018

31 Days of Halloween - Day 11 - Movie



Three teenage girls use a ouija board in an attempt to contact Verónica's deceased father during a solar eclipse. They contact something, and whatever it is it's malignant and has no intention of leaving Verónica.

Verónica (2017) has a really nice build up and anchors itself in the mundane world of a high school girl almost single-handedly raising her three young siblings while their mostly absentee mother works an exhausting job late into the night. This ads a layer of vulnerability as we begin to question Verónica's mental state and whether or not the supernatural threat might be all in her mind. The children she's trying to keep safe may be in increasing danger just by her presence. In the end, though, Verónica doesn't quite get where it needs to. The build up, as I mentioned, works quite well, but the supernantural assaults, if that's what they are, aren't presented with much suspense, or real cohesion. It's often hard to tell what's going on.  There's also a bit of a distance between viewer and the the onscreen characters which keeps us from getting too involved with them when we need to most. The climax itself falls short of being a real payoff either. Based, loosely, on a real life incident which included the first time a police officer claimed to have witnessed paranormal events in their official paperwork, the end may have suffered from a perceived need to keep things close to actual events.

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