I was going to talk about Black Panther this week but that's just going to have to wait (spoiler alert: it's pretty damn good) but actually something more interesting cropped up, even though looking at it the two things are sort of linked.
Those of you with Netflix will no doubt have heard of Veronica. In fact even if you don't have Netflix, there's a fairly decent chance you will have seen a meme on one of the many perpetually intrusive forms of social media we all like to hate but find it increasingly difficult to tear ourselves away from. Full disclosure; most of the views I get of this blog come via Facebook (please feel free to share) so it's probably hypocritical of me to complain too much. Back to the point though; said meme doing the rounds proclaimed a number of things about the movie that even with the heaviest pinch of salt seemed too good to be true.
Firstly it claimed Veronica to be the scariest movie ever made. This in itself is not really a surprise; pretty much every horror movie released since the invention of celluloid has proclaimed something similar. Hostel is a prime example of both that marketing ploy and the terrible reality of what you get as an end result. It arrived with the bold claim that it was the goriest movie you would ever see and I seem to remember something about nearly being banned or some other ludicrous bollocks. The truth about Hostel is that it's poorly conceived torture porn with a flimsy plot barely suturing the murder scenes together with some of the more ropey gore effects I think I've ever had the misfortune of witnessing. I'll get to how well Veronica fares in the scare department momentarily, but in the meantime; dramatic tension.
Secondly it claimed that only one person in a hundred was actually able to make it to the end of the movie, such was the terror contained within. I'm not sure how they tallied their figures, but I can only assume they have an algorithm they can run that will tell them how many viewings started but didn't finish. I have an alternative theory on that one.
Thirdly and most sensational was the claim that 'experts' (I use the term loosely as I suspect they actually just asked a series of random people in the street who looked like they might say anything to be quoted on a movie poster in exchange for a cup of coffee and a sandwich, or possibly some sort of sordid sex act) had stated that Veronica was so scary it may actually even cause people to die. In fact the only verifiable piece of information on the entire meme was that it was based on a true story.
Now being the terrible cynic that I am, I guffawed at all three of these wild statements, but in the name of scientific research and quietly in the hopes that it would be awful enough to be blog-fodder, I spent one hour and forty six minutes attempting to defy the overwhelming odds and complete a viewing of what could possibly cause me to actually expire. It's OK, I've led a good life. Fortunately for us all the hype was what you might politely refer to as Utter Bullshit.
Point one: Is Veronica the scariest movie ever made? No. I mean, categorically no, not in any conceivable way, shape or form. I can confirm it is a movie and that it has in fact been made rather than spawning itself mystically from some sort of otherworldly portal. The problematic word is 'scary', by virtue of the fact that there is literally nothing remotely so during the entire film. It's the old Ouija Board gone wrong scenario that you have seen probably a million times before, except I can only assume the director is either banking on you being empathetic enough to connect the on screen events with what allegedly happened in real life or he's never seen a horror film before and has no idea what the word scary means. Trouble is that this guy directed the original Rec which was actually very good and had some truly terrifying moments in it, so either he's completely lost it or he did this film for a bet. There is very little in the way of jump scares, tension, dread or any of the other things that might make you hide behind your hand, or a loved one's hand, or the sofa, or pelt up the stairs with that feeling of being chased by some horrific creature even though you're the only one in the house and since when have creatures just stopped at the top of the stairs anyway? The only remotely off-putting bit is a shoddy and limp rendering of what it's like to get sleep paralysis and that was only because I get it from time to time and it's easily the most petrifying thing that has ever happened to me (1 out of 10, do not recommend) so it brought up a few crap memories. Other than that, basically nothing. Some creepy shapes, a weird looking blind nun, a rucksack that simply won't behave itself and some unsanitary looking stains under mattresses are about as good as we get offered but it all falls really, really flat. Even the dream sequences are so badly telegraphed that they lose all impact. So a resounding zero on that one then.
Point two: only one percent actually make it through the movie. As outlandish as that sounds, I can just about believe it, although not for the reasons they're suggesting. I'm inherently distrustful of statistics I haven't personally collected and in this case particularly I'm calling shenanigans. This is mostly because I fail to see what point of the movie became so overwhelming for the 99 absolute melts that this statistic refers to, that they simply couldn't watch any more. I'll advance you an alternative theory; 99 out of 100 viewers got so bored that they'd rather have done literally anything other than finish this contemptible turd of a film. It's just so dull. I only managed to get through it because I'm incredibly stubborn and saw it as a challenge more than a pleasant evening watching scary movies with my fiancee. Suffice to say she wasn't terribly impressed either. Even during the climactic scenes at the end of this debacle, there's nothing truly scary going on. Maybe I'm just desensitised by years of chainsaw-wielding maniacs and spatters of deep red corn syrup, but frankly you have to do better than that. Another zero.
Point three (my favourite): People could die watching this movie. You know what? Yes, there is a statistical possibility that during the course of watching this movie, someone could die. The likelihood of Veronica being the cause is roughly equal to zero, as long as you remove the word 'roughly' from that statement. Unless it's physically possible to die of boredom in the space of just under two hours, in which case Spain have accidentally stumbled upon the most potent non-ballistic threat to public safety since crazy people released sarin into the Tokyo subway system. Having said that, statistically I could die putting my trousers on tomorrow but nobody's rushing to use that to advertise their straight-to-Netflix crapfest. Zero.
I find myself pondering just why anyone would make such a set of both ludicrous and fairly easily refutable claims. It's quite obvious really though; somebody somewhere sunk a fairly good chunk of cash into this and you need some sort of return on your investment. Imagine a feature length dramatisation of a supposed real-life haunting only without the documentary voice-over from a washed up British soap actor you'd have to Google to work out who they even are and that's what Veronica is. Now that I read that last sentence back, I'm not at all surprised they made up a bunch of stuff to try and sell it. Ghastly.
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