Sister Death (Hermana Muerte)

 I wasn't a huge fan of Verónica, but it had enough going for it that I ended up checking out writer/director Paco Plaza's prequel (written along with Jorge Guerricaechevarría). It's... well, it shares many of Verónica's problems, but it ends up being a far more interesting movie.

 Sister Death follows a very minor character from the first movie - the creepy... well, Sister Death, whose role was basically to be a spooky presence in the background and to dispense a tiny bit of exposition.
 Here we get to see her as a young Novitiate. Narcisa (Aria Bedmar) arrives at remote nunnery / school for girls with a bit of baggage; When she was a child, she received holy visions that made her a bit of a local celebrity.
 This fame impresses her new sisters (Maru Validivelso and Luisa Merelas), but young Narcisa is full of doubts; In confession, she admits that she is not sure what it is she saw, and yearns for some sort of confirmation.

 So when strange things start to happen - noises in the middle of the night, a chair falling over on its own accord - the novice latches onto it, thinking it's some sort of sign. The bumps in the dark, she learns from the children, are caused by the ghost of a girl who goes around drawing hangman doodles on the walls (that's this movie's version of the haunted toy trope, I guess). Narcisa befriends one of the kids who seems to be targeted by the haunting (Sara Roch) and investigates. It doesn't end well. She also starts having horrible - and deeply silly - waking nightmares.

 So far... not great. But then the third act kicks off with a total eclipse (in another one of the very mild references to Verónica) and the story switches tracks completely. The finale has some severe problems - the solution to the mystery the movie had been teasing is outright shown, not solved, the explanation fails to make sense of many of the weird happenings, and it all feels very disconnected from what came before. But... well, it does take Narcisa's character in an interesting direction, and it's a cool little series of events where time folds in on itself satisfyingly.

 From a script standpoint it kind of sucks, but still, it's better than anything that came before; I'm not going to complain too much.

 On the whole it's all right, and very well made; The cinematographer this time around is Daniel Fernández Abelló, and the 1:33 compositions are often beautiful. It's a luminous movie, with lots of play between stark sunlight and shadows and the convent, what with all the religious iconography, often makes for a very striking backdrop. It's very atmospheric and creepy.
 At least until it gets to the scares: while somewhat imaginative, they're... well, pretty damn ridiculous. For example: the falling chair is good foreshadowing, but it's not particularly scary. That doesn't stop the music and the visual language from trying to sell it as the most horrible thing ever. Same goes for the hangman doodles and a teleporting scissor - the less said about the constricting dress (the film's most on-the-nose bit of imagery), the better.

 The more overtly fantastic visions/nightmares are inventive, but cheesy as all hell and very, very stupid. Until the finale; Even then, it's not like the movie coheres and justifies itself, it's more like we suddenly find ourselves in a better, more interesting film.

 Verónica was a possession movie that did without religion and an exorcism. Its prequel moves further away from that subgenre - this is firmly a ghost story - but it's also got a healthy iconoclastic streak despite its sanctified trappings. I'm still not sold on the whole Verónica cinematic universe, but for now I remain cautiously interested.