Veronica (2017)

Veronica (2017): written by Fernando Navarro and Paco Plaza; directed by Paco Plaza; starring Sandra Escacena (Veronica), Bruna Gonzalez (Lucia), Claudia Placer (Irene), Ivan Chavero (Antonito), Ana Torrent (Ana), and Consuelo Trujillo (Hermana Muerte): 

Set in 1991, Veronica is vaguely inspired by a 'true story.' It's about as truthful as The Exorcist -- the events of the film are entirely the invention of the Spanish director/co-writer best known for the found-footage horror film REC.

The real events involved the death of a young woman. So even with the names changed and the events leading up to that death entirely invented, there's more than a whiff of exploitation to the film. That's too bad. It's a solid supernatural thriller with a sympathetic teen-aged protagonist (Veronica, that is). Traumatized by the recent death of her father and overwhelmed by doing the majority of the care-giving for her three younger siblings, she's gradually going adrift.

And then she and two friends decide to consult a Ouija board. 

During a solar eclipse. 

Oops.

And there's also a somewhat sinister, elderly, blind nun at Veronica's school who warns her of tampering with the supernatural. Too late!

The result is a movie that conveys creeping, escalating dread quite nicely. Though it's no wonder there's a blind nun at the school -- the protocols the school follows for watching that eclipse would result in a whole lot of visually impaired school children. It's a pretty distracting sequence, really, because it's born of inadequate research and not intentional horror. 

Boy, do those nuns not understand how the sun during an eclipse works! Maybe they should have consulted a Ouija board! Recommended.

Enjoyable Badness

The poster reflects nothing in the movie!

The Happening (2008): written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan; starring Mark Wahlberg (Elliot Moore), Zooey Deschanel (Alma Moore), John Leguizamo (Julian), Ashlyn Sanchez (Jess), and Betty Buckley (Mrs. Jones): This is great bad movie-making, stupid and weirdly acted and filled with scenes that will blow your mind, including repeated scenes of people trying to run away from the wind. 

It's a Must-See, the moment at which M. Night Shyamalan bottomed out. Zooey Deschanel and Mark Wahlberg (the latter as the least likely high-school science teacher of all time) don't even seem to be acting in the same movie. Highly recommended as a great bad movie.

Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016): written by Juliet Snowden, Stiles White, Mike Flanagan, and Jeff Howard; directed by Mike Flanagan; starring Annalise Basso (Lina Zander), Elizabeth Reaser (Alice Zander), Lulu Wilson (Doris Zander), Henry Thomas (Father Tom), and Parker Mack (Mikey): I had completely forgotten pretty much everything from the first Ouija movie when I saw this, so certain things did surprise me that were not in fact intended to be surprises. Unlike the tedious Ouija, this one has an increasingly gonzo sense of horror that, by the end, has made it oddly satisfying without really being any good. 

One of the great pleasures of the movie derives from the decision of the Casting Director to cast three actresses as a mother and two daughters who look nothing like one another, and then the CD compounds the problem by casting a priest and a girl's boyfriend with very similar-looking actors. There are many other pleasures, most of them from the 'WTF?' school of enjoyably bad movie-making. One of the few supernatural movies that embeds a debunking seminar on Mediums in the narrative. Highly recommended as a great bad movie.

Ouija (2014)

Ouija: based on the Hasbro board game; written by Juliet Snowden and Stiles White; directde by Stiles White; starring Olivia Cooke (Laine Morris), Ana Coto (Sarah Morris), Douglas Smith (Pete), and Daren Kagasoff (Trevor) (2014): This wouldn't be the worst horror movie in the world if it were the first horror movie someone ever saw. The scares are pretty tame and the 'twist' ending stereotypically lame, but the young actors are surprisingly good. The direction underplays everything, leading to a bit of dullness. 

That Ouija is actually a licensed Hasbro board game is probably unknown to most people. What's surprising in a contemporary movie of this sort is that no one uses the Internet to research ghost-busting. What's divertingly stupid about this movie is that no one researches anything useful. One interesting tic of the script is that the teens are on their own in a world in which parents and helpful adults are almost as rare as in a Peanuts cartoon. As those ubiquitous Blumhouse horror joints go, far from the worst. Very lightly recommended.