Line #20 Film/Veronica


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/veronica_35.jpg]]
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3	''Veronica'' (original title: ''Verónica'') is a 2017 Spanish horror film directed by Paco Plaza (one of the two creators of the ''{{Film/REC}}'' series) and distributed by {{Creator/Netflix}}. The plot is [[VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory very loosely]] based on the [[UrbanLegend backstory]] of the "Vallecas Case", an alleged 1992 {{poltergeist}} in Madrid reputed to be the only time in Spanish history where a police officer claimed to witness paranormal activity in his intervention report.
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5	The titular character, Veronica, is a 15-year-old working class girl who plays with an OuijaBoard at school during a [[TotalEclipseOfThePlot total eclipse]] in [[TheNineties 1991]]. While her first intention is to contact her recently deceased father, an unknown evil hears her instead and starts manifesting in her home, where it endangers her and her little siblings.
6
7	!!''Veronica'' contains examples of:
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9	* TheNineties: The movie takes place in 1991.
10	* AFormYouAreComfortableWith: [[InvertedTrope Inverted]]. The entity first takes the shape of [[spoiler:Veronica's father]], which is unsettling because [[spoiler: he is dead and appears completely naked]]. It then morphs into its true form, which is even ''more'' unsettling.
11	* ApocalypticLog: Veronica's call to emergency services. She can't describe what is happening, just scream for help and that "it" is coming for her siblings.
12	* ArtisticLicenseHistory: There was no total solar eclipse in Spain in 1991.
13	* BasedOnAGreatBigLie: The movie ends with stills of the movie itself made to look like early 90s photographs. Combine that with the claims of the plot being BasedOnATrueStory and it's clearly geered to make viewers believe they are photographs from the real case.
14	* BigSisterInstinct: Veronica takes case of the house and her siblings in the absence of her mother and her priority is to protect them from the entity. This includes trying to [[spoiler:commit suicide when she realizes she's been possessed and used to hurt her siblings herself.]]
15	* BlindSeer: Subverted by "Sister Death", who is blind but can "see" the presence following Veronica. However, she claims she could always see such beings and ''made herself blind'' in an unsuccessful attempt to make herself unable.
16	* ByTheEyesOfTheBlind: The entity is invisible to everyone except Veronica and Sister Death.
17	* TheCassandra: [[PlayingWithATrope Played with]]. Nobody believes Veronica and blames her for most incidents, but she doesn't act in a way she could be believed and [[spoiler:she is indeed responsible for some of the acts as a result of being possessed.]]
18	* TheCavalryArrivesLate: The police arrive when [[spoiler:Veronica is being [[SymbolicRape symbolically violated]] by the entity and can do nothing but watch and take her to a hospital after she collapses. She then dies at the hospital.]]
19	* CreepyChild:
20	** Veronica's siblings [[spoiler:start devouring her]] during a NightmareSequence.
21	** Antoñito slips into this when he talks of meeting his deceased father.
22	* DemonicPossession: The evil entity (which may or may not be a demon) takes control of [[spoiler:Veronica and uses her to hurt her siblings.]]
23	* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:Veronica is stopped from committing suicide (ironically, by the entity itself) but dies of her injuries at the hospital]].
24	* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:Veronica]] tries to slash her throat when she realizes [[spoiler: she's been hurting her siblings while being possessed by the entity]].
25	* TheFaceless: After dropping its first guise as [[spoiler: Verónica's father]], the entity takes the shape of a black humanoid with no features. Its skin looks like it was burnt to a crisp.
26	* FreezeFrameBonus:
27	** [[spoiler:Veronica's father]] is seen first on the TV's reflection after Veronica turns it off.
28	** The deer in the hunting painting disappears near the end of the film.
29	* {{Foreshadowing}}: [[spoiler:Every time something happened to her siblings, Veronica got blamed somehow. This ends being the truth: she was possessed and was the one hurting them]].
30	* FromTheMouthsOfBabes: Antoñito claims to have been visited by his (dead) father and that he said he will take him to "where he is now".
31	* FullFrontalAssault: The entity wears no clothes, even when it [[spoiler:takes the form of Veronica's father]].
32	* GrowingUpSucks: Veronica is forced to take care of the home and her siblings while being scared[=/=]threatened by her own developing womanhood.
33	* HarmfulToMinors: All the victims of the entity are minors and several scenes with them evoke sexual abuse.
34	* HolyBurnsEvil: Veronica draws Viking protective charms for her sisters and handles a crucifix in an attempt to stop the entity. This is both [[InvertedTrope inverted]] and [[SubvertedTrope subverted]]: The charms are the ones that burn when the entity touches them, and the crosses fail to stop it.
35	* HowWeGotHere: The movie starts with the police receiving Veronica's frantic call and rushing to her home.
36	* HumanPopsicle: [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]]. Veronica becomes "frozen" when she is eating with her siblings, but only in the metaphorical sense.
37	* HumanSacrifice: Referenced during the class preceding the eclipse. The Ouija session has shades of this, as Veronica bleeds on the board after the glass explodes and cuts her. And of course, [[spoiler:Veronica dies after being tormented by the entity.]]
38	* IAmAHumanitarian: Veronica has a nightmare where her hungry siblings start eating her.
39	* IncestSubtext: The entity takes the shape of Veronica's parents and its attack are reminiscent of [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil sexual assault]].
40	* {{Irony}}: In a particularly cruel example, Sister Death's attempt to rid herself of her second sight by blinding herself made this her ''only'' kind of sight.
41	* ItWontTurnOff: Early on, the TV starts on its own while the children sleep.
42	* ManOnFire: The entity's recurring shape looks like a man burned to a crisp.
43	* MirrorMonster[=/=]TheMirrorShowsYourTrueSelf: Veronica's mirror reflection doesn't match her [[spoiler:which reveals that she's possessed, or if you go with the "it was all on her head" explanation, just shows her in the state she really is.]]
44	* NightmareSequence: Veronica has two nightmares. In one, she sees [[spoiler:her ([[FullFrontalAssault naked]]) father]] calling to her and morphing into the entity. In the other, her siblings [[spoiler:eat her flesh while her mother tells her to "grow up" before her hand morphs into the entity's and reaches for her crotch]].
45	* MistakenForCrazy: Both Veronica and Sister Death are taken for insane... [[spoiler: but maybe they really are]].
46	* MythologyGag:
47	** One retelling of the "Vallecas Case" claims that Estefanía (Veronica) was trying to contact a boyfriend who had died in a biking accident, but this is not true. In the movie, the third girl (Diana) is said to have a boyfriend who died in such way.
48	** The name Veronica was likely lifted from another UrbanLegend that was popular in 1990s Spain, a version of the [[Film/UrbanLegendsBloodyMary Bloody Mary]] story where the name of the entity was Veronica and she could be summoned by saying it three times.
49	* NoPeriodsPeriod: Veronica is yet to have her first period despite being 15, which makes the school nurse suggest she has an iron defficiency. She ends having it while being "visited" by the entity.
50	* NunsAreSpooky: Veronica and her siblings attend a religious school run by nuns. The spookiest is an old blind nun called 'Sister Death' by the children.
51	* OuijaBoard: The entity is summoned when Veronica and two school mates play with one during a solar eclipse.
52	* ParentalNeglect: Veronica accuses her mother of this. To keep supporting her family, she works so much she only comes back by the time her kids are asleep and leaves before they wake up, essentially never seeing them and forcing Veronica to step up to be their substituted mother rather than their sister.
53	* {{Poltergeist}}: Objects fall and burn without apparent cause, both before and after the entity takes shape.
54	* ProtectiveCharm: Veronica draws Viking protection charms in her sisters's bedroom, and tells Antoñito to draw them on the walls while she resumes the Ouija session with her sisters.
55	* RageAgainstTheReflection: Near the end, Veronica breaks the bathroom mirror when she sees her altered reflection.
56	* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: The entity's attacks are reminiscent of sexual abuse.
57	* RealAfterAll: [[spoiler: Although TheTwist all but sets that Veronica is having a psychotic break, when the police arrive they find her levitating and bending backwards. After she dies, her photograph burns spontaneously.]]
58	* SayMyName:
59	** The entity repeats Veronica's name while in the shape of [[spoiler:her father]]. This is the only time it talks.
60	** Veronica tells Antoñito to cover his ears and call her if he sees the entity. She finds him in a closet, repeating "Vero" over and over.
61	* SpontaneousCombustion: The entity burns the [[ProtectiveCharm Protective Charms]] that Veronica places on her sisters bedroom, and leaves burning marks on several objects without setting them on fire. At the end, [[spoiler: Veronica's photograph burns while a detective watches it, despite no source of fire visible.]]
62	* TalkingInYourSleep: When Veronica falls unconscious after playing with the Ouija, she whispers some lines that she doesn't remember later.
63	* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness: The third act reveals that Veronica's actions don't match what she sees as a result of being possessed.
64	* TomeOfEldritchLore: Veronica looks for ways to fight the entity in an Occult-themed magazine.
65	* TotalEclipseOfThePlot: The girls play with the Ouija board during a solar eclipse, which is claimed to open a door to the paranormal sphere.
66	* TwistEnding: [[spoiler: Veronica realizes that it's her who has been hurting her siblings. Because of being possessed by the entity...]]
67	* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Veronica tells Antoñito to draw Viking protective charms from an Occult encyclopedia but [[spoiler: he turns the page and draws a Satanic invocation symbol, unaware of its meaning.]]
68	* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: It is best to say that the movie is ''inspired by'' the Vallecas Case (or its [[UrbanLegend already mythologized]] backstory), rather than actually based on it.
69	** Estefanía Gutiérrez (basis of Verónica) played with the Ouija one year before [[spoiler:her death]], in 1990.
70	** The recent death preceding events was Estefanía's grandfather[[note]]Who according to later legend "started it all" by cursing Estefanía in his deathbed; needless to say that the family never said this[[/note]], not her father. Both mother and father lived with the children at the time. They had six children instead of four and they were closer to Estefanía in age.
71	** The incident(s) that brought police to the home happened months to a year after [[spoiler:Estefanía's death]], not on the same night.
72	* WithFriendsLikeThese: Veronica's friend and Diana become this as they distance themselves away from her. [[spoiler: Diana mainly due to being selfish and Veronica's friend due to being spooked by the fact she spoke that she would die on the day of the eclipse.]]

Context Film / Veronica