Tasha 0:00

On July 13th, 1991, Maria Estefania Gutierrez Lazaro was a 17-year-old girl living in Bayecas, Madrid, Spain, with her parents Concepcion Lazaro and Maximo Gutierrez. I'm gonna try that again. Maximo Gutierrez and her five younger siblings. Estefania liked to sing and dance and throw parties, and she had a boyfriend. Three of her siblings, Ricardo, Maximiliano, who goes by Maxie, and Kiribina, say that she was more like a mother than an older sister to them. She'd clean, cook for the family, get the kids ready for school, help them with their homework, and at night she was the one who tucked them in for bed. On Saturday, July 13th, 1991, Estefania was just a normal teenage girl. But by Sunday, her life was over. And in November 1992, her story was resurrected into a haunted image of itself that's still being told to this day. I'm Tasha, and this is Matt. And this story is Real Twisty. Welcome to Real Twisty, setting stories straight. This is episode one. One the first, the primo, and we are going all the way to Spain for this one with a story that I thought was going to be so straightforward. I thought it was gonna be so good to introduce the show's premise and like a really easy to follow way. And then I started the research, and I realized I might have kicked my own butt with this one. But I am in too deep now. Uh so buckle up, buttercups. Here we go. Real Twisty number one is the 2017 Spanish film Veronica.

Matt 2:11

I love that movie.

Tasha 2:12

Me too, Matthew. I love it. I remember it released um on Netflix in the US in 2018, and I added it to our October Halloween movie-thon, and it was just like chef's kiss. Like it was the perfect possession movie, and then like the cherry on top was that it was based on a true story, you know, and that like that just increases that scare factor because there's that possibility that there's truth to it, you know, it's like it's true, yeah. But then or is it? You know, that's what we're here to find out. So language is really malleable, right? Like what you say can be misconstrued so easily by someone else, how two people understand a single event, like even when you're standing right next to each other, can be completely different. If you ask me a question and we're in a conversation and I say okay, like you're gonna hear that. And what are you gonna hear? You're gonna hear what your voice in your head hears. Right. But like if you text me and you ask me a question and I text okay, suddenly there's like this unspoken subtext, and you're reading between lines that aren't there. Yes. But it's like language is just so flexible.

Matt 3:48

Yeah.

Tasha 3:48

Um, and so in school, like at university, I really loved getting to discuss how a narrator's reliability could influence how we understood the story and what we understood of the story to be true. And before we really got into that discussion, I never thought about like, you know, you just like would read a book and you'd be like, okay, yeah, the person's telling the story, like this is their story, it's their story. But that doesn't necessarily mean that that's the right story, or that's, you know, it's that whole like there's three sides to every story. There's your side, my side, and the truth, yeah, kind of thing, you know. And like when I got my job as a copywriter, I learned how slippery, like even unregulated food claims could be. So we I was working on a project and um there were claims that had like cage-free or free range, or even things like heart healthy, all natural, organic, yeah, light. Um, those claims like are not regulated by the FDA, so the food manufacturers kind of get to decide what those terms mean. And I that like blew my mind the first time I learned that. And then, you know, as I've like become a true crime junkie, thank you, COVID. Um, I I found it really fascinating. Like, I would dive into one case, and they'd be like, the whole case fell apart because there wasn't a witness to give a testimony. There was no one there who said, like, yeah, I saw it, this happened. And so they couldn't, they couldn't like get the guy. But then you'd go to a completely different case, and they'd be like, Yeah, uh, we had a testimony, but you know, memory's fallible, and so like we you can't trust a testimony.

Matt 6:10

Well, there's no perfect evidence or no perfect witness, exactly.

Tasha 6:13

And so it's like, so do you need a testimony? Do you not need a testimony? What is the right answer here? So on Real Twisty, we are investigating the real life events that based on a true story, stories are based on. And hopefully we'll get an idea of what parts of the story changed along the way and why, diving into how the story gets told and what type of influence that has on how we collectively experience it, and we'll see how twisty the real story gets along the way. Um, or if the original story was twisty enough that it didn't change much in delivery, because we have, as we've been looking, we have found a few of those. Yeah, yeah. That'd be interesting. Yeah, um I'm kind of excited to look at some of those too. So, like I mentioned today, we're investigating the 2017 Spanish horror film Veronica, directed by Paco Plaza, um, who did the rec films. That's his like big that's what people know him from. He also wrote the film with Fernando Navarro and story editor Coral Cruz. And we're starting with horror, but I want to let everyone know like if horror's not your jam, that's okay. We're gonna be covering stories across all genres. So um, you know, don't think that this is just a horror or true crime ride. Like, this is if it's inspired by a real story, it's fair game. So grab a coffee, settle in because Veronica is a ride, like it it were yeah, it's fun, it's fun, it is fun. Okay, so I mentioned that I did some research, and you did way more research than I did, but also you were like, Tasha, you gotta stop researching.

Matt 8:34

We gotta record this.

Tasha 8:37

I can't help it. It's who I am. Uh but I okay, so my research kind of started because or where it started is that the phrase that I hear most often with cases kind of like this in the US is like paranormal research, right? Um, but everything that I was finding whenever I was looking into the case of Estefania and I was looking into the movie Veronica, was using the term parapsychology.

Matt 9:16

Yeah, I noticed that as well.

Tasha 9:17

Yeah, and so I really I their culture was like so locked into parapsychology. You did not see paranormal research like anywhere. Um, so I wanted to get a handle on the difference and and see how much that weighed into like how the story got told. So paranormal research, which is what we see represented in the US in much of like our ghost hunting TV shows, is basically like observational field investigations of hauntings and cryptids and the like, and it's often conducted by hobbyists. So I'm gonna say, like, when we go hang out at um the Lizzie Borden house, like we like to do. Um, you know, we're hobbyists, we're not doing anything scientific. I'm just gonna throw that out there. There's nothing about what you and I do at the Lizzie Borden house that is scientific at all. Um, I would say we are paranormal researching. Okay. Would you agree with that?

Matt 10:29

I mean, like we're like beginners, like novice.

Tasha 10:32

Yes.

Matt 10:33

Compared to some of the others that are out there. It is invested money into B.

Tasha 10:39

Yes. Um, but for parapsychology, it's like actually an academic study. So it evolved from 19th century spiritualism and it investigates the intersection of science and the unexplainable phenomena, and it confronts questions about consciousness and causality and reality, and it's often um laboratory and scientific method-based study, which sounds like super professional, but I'm like, as you get into the story of Estefania, like I'm not quite sure that's what was happening in the 1990s in Spain, where we are for this episode, and you'll see why when we like dig into her story, but that's that's the difference. So let's start there. So there are two events largely regarded as like the start of modern parapsychology in Spain, and they both were in the 1970s, which was really just like the perfect time for them to happen. The first was the appearance of faces in the floor of this home in Belmez in 1971, and the family like found these big huge faces in their in their concrete floor and tried scrubbing them out, couldn't get them out, supposedly like just could not get them to go away. They even went so far as to dig up the concrete. They dug up the concrete, laid new flooring, and the faces reappeared. Like they just reappeared.

Matt 12:34

So it looked like Jesus?

Tasha 12:36

No, it did not look like Jesus, which really surprised me because I was like, oh, this is gonna be like, you know, the glee episode of the grilled Jesus.

Matt 12:44

Grilled Jesus.

Tasha 12:45

Yeah. It was it was not it was not um, you know, marbleized Jesus or Mary in the floor. It was just these like weird faces. And I think I remember reading that there was like later on, they someone someone speculated that there was like a burial ground underneath the house, but there was something about the bodies that were buried there were buried without their heads, is the story, is the lore behind it. And so it was like that's weird. They were like, We're gonna bring our our heads. You took our heads, so we're gonna make you look at them all the time. I don't know. Um, but so that that created like a ton of study. So then the next big parapsych or paranormal, I'm just gonna call it a paranormal event that because we're not at parapsychology yet. These are just the the next thing that happened was this dude named Um, I've got to get his name right, Yuri Geller. So the second event was like a whole damn person. Okay, we had faces as the first event. The second event is a whole damn person. Yuri Geller he appeared on Spanish television in 1975, and he bent metal, which he like low-key claimed he did through powers he received from extraterrestrials 53,000 light years ago.

Matt 14:27

Well, the bending of the spoons and all that stuff.

Tasha 14:29

Yes, yes.

Matt 14:31

Uh rub it real hard.

Tasha 14:33

Yeah, Yuri Yeller was was a special, special kind of soul. So the Belmez faces sparked like years of investigations that actually ended up entering their university system, and it sparked like talks and courses, and then before long, parapsychology labs and societies were established at the universities in Spain to perform their own research. And back in our hometown of Madrid, where our story takes place, the Spanish Society of Parapsychology was founded in 1979 to study paranormal phenomena scientifically. So I mentioned this was the perfect time for these two events to kind of spark curiosity in the paranormal. And I want to kind of rabbit hole into that for a second. I know we're like rabbit holing a lot, um, but I think this really helps us understand how Estefania's story gets told and twisted just like 13 years later, and it explains a lot about how our protagonists live. So bear with me because we're about to get into some Spanish history, and I really tried to make sure I I want to make sure that I'm telling it correctly. So if there's anything that I got wrong, um please let us know in comments because I want to make sure that I'm delivering this correctly, and I was um spending a lot of very late nights translating uh Spanish websites. So uh, you know, it's it took a lot. Um, but in 1939, General Francisco Franco rose to power in Spain when with the aid of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, and just a reminder, just in case you don't know, or maybe you forgot, and a little bit of a spoiler of what's about to come in Spain, these were not the good guys. They're not they're not the good ones. But his nationalist forces won the Spanish Civil War. So Spain was then thrust into like this 36-year Franco dictatorship that lasted until he died in 1975. And during Francoist Spain, there was extensive censorship and regulations on everything. Like you couldn't speak out against the government or the Catholic Church. It was majorly like locked down. There was a state um television service, and only one government-ran radio network was authorized to create broadcast news for the entire nation. Um, cultural diversity was repressed, incredibly repressed. And Franco even banned recognition and the legal use of previously recognized national languages. So they had more than just one language that was nationally recognized in Spain. And when he came to power, he said, nope, those languages, those cultures no longer exist in this country. Spanish is it. If you don't speak Spanish, you are not like a part of this country, and Catholic, right? Yep, Catholic, Spanish, that's it. So if other languages weren't allowed, other religions and beliefs weren't permitted. So anything not fitting the Catholic Church was deemed a cult and punishable. And we're talking like horribly like graphically punishable. Um, but Catholic parishes were given policing powers that were equal to those of um like local governments, and then members of the Catholic Church were given police functions, which is just crazy to me. And then priests became investigators, they would look into people's past to see, to look and see how did they align politically and and you know, just to investigate. So people are also encouraged to out their neighbors. So if you were found out that at one point you sided with the left or the old leadership, or if someone overheard you speaking like an old language inside your home, or they saw you keep an old cultural practice and they outed you, you could lose your job, you could be imprisoned, you could be beaten in the street. Worse, like there was a punishment that I read about where they would, and they were doing this as late as in the seven uh 70s, where they would take a um like a metal cuff and put it around your neck and um take chains and pull them until it tightened around your neck and separated your spine to death. But before Franco took power, divorce, contraception, abortion, um, they were all legal and he made them forbidden because they didn't align with the Catholic Church. And so, along with that, if you had been married outside of the Catholic Church before Franco took power, your marriage was now null and void. So you had to like appeal to the Catholic Church to see if they would validate your marriage, no matter how long you had been married. Um, so they had control over the schools, they were like going through and firing thousands of teachers, homosexuality was criminalized, um, LGBTQ individuals were arrested, they were sent to internment camps and asylums and tortured. And then women were stripped of their rights and they were confined to family care and motherhood. Their husbands and their fathers managed all of their affairs and their economic lives. Starting in the 1930s, they owned nothing until the 1970s. A woman could not even open a bank account without her father or husband co-signing. So I don't know if you weren't married and your father was dead, I guess you didn't have a bank account. I don't know. So all Spanish women additionally were required by the state to serve for six months in a female branch of the state party where they would undergo motherhood training and political. indoctrination. So that was just part of growing up. And to I just want to remind everybody, this is like Estefania is alive while this is happening. Because Franco dies in 1975. Estefania is 17 in 1991. This is she is a child when he dies. So this is still something that is very alive and well when she is a kid. So one of the worst crimes I found during this time was the women's protection board. But I I don't want the name to fool anybody. It protected no one and they were not women. It was a public institution established in 1941 that took girls, children as young as 11 and it was in place until 1985. So it was finally dismantled in 1985 just six years before our story takes place. They forcibly incarcerated these young girls putting them away in state organized church ran institutions for being quote fallen or in danger of falling so getting married or getting pregnant out of marriage out of wedlock but even like hey I'm a young girl and I have a boyfriend. No it started in 1941 and it was not dismantled until 1985. Wow so 10 years after he died it took 10 years for them to dismantle this um but you could be put in one of these institutions for getting pregnant out of wedlock for just having a boyfriend for if you were sexually assaulted if you were raped molested um that was the fault of the girl and so the victim was imprisoned not the attacker the attacker not the man who did it he went about his happy little way the young girl was imprisoned in one of these facilities um orphans were put in these homes girls who were a little rebellious like if you were found talking back or questioning the Catholic church but literally parents who were like you know what this this uh parent thing is just not really working out for us we just don't want to be parents to this kid anymore they could take their daughters and drop them off and just say I this isn't working for me I just don't want to be this girl's mom and dad anymore and they could drop them off because they don't want to be parents so when these girls were dropped off if they were pregnant or if they had already given birth to a baby the babies were forcibly taken from the young girls the records of where these infants went are lost. So no one knows there's no record of whose babies went where they're just gone. Every day they were forcibly examined and tested for their virginity by doctors. They underwent psychiatric treatments and were physically punished by nuns. They performed forced labor and workshops and when they weren't experiencing all of that they were setting in mass or they were cleaning the convent so some women have reported being heavily sedated tied to beds being given shock treatments when they tried to escape or fight back in 1996 there was a um instance where they had 1564 boxes of documentation that held records of where the babies went what happened to all of the girls who went in and out of the system over those you know 41 years and they mysteriously lost 1500 of those boxes in a in a flood and they were never recovered before any of the documentation was ever um studied or inventoried. So the women have never seen reparations they've they've never received any sort of recognition or recovery for their imprisonment or their abuse I did see an article um where as recently in March of this year 53 women were formally pardoned and officially recognized as victims of the Francoist regime but that took 41 years after the end of the of the program and it's only 53 women more than 41,000 girls ages 11 to 24 were forcibly imprisoned in that system. So I really want to stress how recent this would have been for the girls and the women we're going to meet in our story today. I found a story of a 15 year old girl in Maculata Balderama the story from the women's protection board at the time was that she fell from a third story window trying to escape and that the fall killed her and she died. But it was quickly brought under speculation because she was only in her underwear it was in the middle of the day and the front doors to the building were wide open and completely unmanned. So she absolutely could have just walked out the front door with no problem. There's no reason for her to have tried to escape out of a third story window at that time. And also why would she have done that basically naked um that story was in Madrid in September of 1983. So Estefania is 17 in 1991 that puts her about nine years old in Madrid when this takes place. Yeah wow so these centers are still playing a huge part in her childhood the little girls are still hearing if you behave badly they'll take you to the nuns yeah this is part of their childhood all the way up until Estefania is about 11 or 12 years old that is a threat. If you behave badly they'll take they'll take you to the nuns so when the board is finally dismantled she's about 12 okay so that is that's what is driving her role as a girl in Madrid Spain at this time. It's a lie it's really heavy and it is hard to grapple with at the beginning of discussing a horror movie about demonic possession. So I really like struggled with how to tell the story because it's like this chicken and egg conundrum because Estefania Liv for real her story came first but then we saw the movie Veronica first before we knew about Estefania but like Estefania's story was technically her story was in the media first but can you set a story straight before you tell the story wrong and then like so then which one do you tell first do you tell Estefania's wrong story first or do you tell Veronica's wrong story first? It's just so twisty. I don't know so I finally decided to to do Veronica first like give the history of Spain give a little bit of introduction to Estefania so that wasn't the full history of Spain. No you know it's it's been around a long time and all that stuff. Yeah there's a lot but evil time I wanted to like let people know what we're dealing with.

Matt 30:59

You know no when you told me some of this I was like there's a lot more to like how the country was rammed that made probably so much influence into like maybe what got her curious about certain things.

Tasha 31:15

Yes that wasn't available would exactly you know yep it influences so much in the story it influences how the media deals with it it influences the fascination with it it just it really even down to like how people thought of Estefania at the time how they treated her family there's so much playing into that and I don't think that we could understand that without looking at the history and the culture I think individuals who lived in Spain and saw this movie in Spain which by the way it um when it released to movie theaters in 2017 it was number two at the box office it it was huge in Spain because everybody knew the story it was massive but they have all of this cultural background you know they know like what they're what they're working with but in the US we were just like oh it's a scary possession story on Netflix you know and then we see it and we're like okay but like we lost so much of the context. Yeah the translation's different yeah because we don't know the culture translation yeah and I think the culture of it is almost well I do I think the culture of it is scarier than the it's like watching Japanese horror or Korean horror.

Matt 32:57

Like there's a lost element that Americans don't understand.

Tasha 33:01

Yes yes probably make it more scarier yes and it's like when you read old literature in times when there was a lot of censorship or even watching like movies from um the McCarthy era when there was so much censorship and it was like things were never what they said they were you know sex was never sex it was always something else or yeah you know things were always representative of things that you were not allowed to talk about. Yeah you know and and I think that that is very true of Veronica. But I think that while it's very true of Veronica I think it's also kind of sad that Estefania's story gets like twisted up in this because I think that her family has been through a lot. So let's jump into Veronica so that we can get back to Estefania.

Matt 34:06

That was a big intro I know it was like half an hour. Should we have him do the intro music now?

Tasha 34:11

No maybe I don't know okay so he'd be frustrated I he would be so he might throw it in just to be like let's give a refresh let's give him a refresh um intermission refresh your coffee I I do feel like I need to give a warning in the words of River song look it up spoilers Veronica opens up on a police call it's a young girl and we later find out the young girl's Veronica and she is screaming to this operator for help and she's screaming he's inside and it's June 15th 1991 1.35 a.m in Madrid and we see several police cars and they are flying through the rain to get to the apartment and this we see this like very hardworn detective he finally steps out of the car and he is going to be our narrator later at the end for the famed police report and the officers that are already there they direct him to the apartment building and this is one of my favorite camera shots and I can't help myself I love film and I love whenever directors do fun things like this but he Paco really like captures the moment of the chaos because we go from having this like we're watching the detective but then you see this woman who's like completely soaked through and she runs across the screen and and the camera stops following our you know our our you know great warrior detective to to follow this crazy brain soaked woman she runs over and we see her start to run towards these children who are screaming but then this other cop like cuts her off and so the camera's like what's happening here and the camera starts to follow that cop and then it you know he walks the direction that the woman came and the camera stops on the detective and is like now what and then you know we hear the part of the phone call where where Veronica tells the woman on the tells the operator the address of the apartment and we hear her say neuro ocho and as she says that the detective has started walking up and the camera zooms in and focuses on building number eight and so like through all of that chaos like we finally like have something to focus on like the line goes dead the phone is dead the dog has seen all the squirrels and is finally focused on the bowl of food. Yes we we're going inside the building you know like this is it um and so the detective goes in and he walks into the apartment he's got two cops behind him and this whole thing cracks me up because he's just got like a flashlight our our Mr.

Matt 37:52

Detective does and the cops have guns and I'm like y'all you have the guns and you're hiding behind the detective with the flashlight yeah if you shoot you're gonna shoot the detective well and I mentioned this to you before is like why is the detective there first because in America detectives show up later yes but in other countries like that's sometimes different.

Tasha 38:20

Yes depending on what the phone call was well and I think too I think it was more of like but it also is like film dramatics right film dramatics and then you've also got like there were police officers already there um but they all got there like very very fast in in response to this phone call um but also I think like his lack of cop clothes I think was more of just like he's the one in charge I think it had more to do with like his seniority than probably anything else you know um but so they go in and you see in the inside the apartment for the first time and like everything that was on the walls is on the floor and the lights are busted out it's dark inside he has to have a flashlight because otherwise we're not seeing anything but there's a crucifix on the ground and the apartment's just trashed like broken glass and then we see like drawings and crayon on the walls but like something violent has happened here and that's that's what you get well home invasion is probably what they thought right she said and he's inside he's in the house whatever yeah so the screen goes black and we get like text on the screen and it says early morning June 15th 1991 Madrid police station 212 received an emergency call and then it cuts back to our detective and this is like setting up that based on a true story right it's giving us this information a little bit at a time it's feeding that fear of like this is a real thing something happened here. He starts our detective starts following this line of blood splatter down the hallway to this door at the end of the hall and we cut to another screen of text and it says the story is based on the police report filed by the detective in charge of the case we hear the police radio then confirm that there are two children still in the apartment okay and the very visibly afraid detective and two cops open the door they go into this room and the detective's flashlight like temporarily blinds the audience and we hear this screaming and the camera zooms in to the detective who's like freaking his shit out like he is just well I mean as as much as what his facial features will do yeah I mean but he is freaked out.

Matt 41:24

He is freaked out cops with him are more freaked out.

Tasha 41:27

Yes they are and then the camera like cuts to this like severe close up of Veronica mid-scream. Yeah but then no it like zooms out and she's yawning it's a happy sunshiny day and Veronica's safe in her bed and she's just waking up and her alarm clock is going off and I swear this is our first Bible reference because a rooster is crowing and all I could think of was Peter denying Jesus before the next rooster crows.

Matt 42:08

I swear I'm interested on how you're making this come into this context.

Tasha 42:14

I promise you I will make it happen. Okay so because Veronica's gonna do some very non-church ordained things before we hear the rooster crow again like very non-church ordained things and I just think it's really interesting that out of all of the alarm clocks that they could have put in this child's bedroom the one that they choose is a rooster that crows to wake her up and you could say that she denies Jesus with her actions just saying just saying but the screen tells us it's three days earlier which is also kind of biblical biblical. Yeah I think every number is biblical so this Thursday is June 12 1991 so immediately like we have some weird discrepancies with the true story of Estefania right because Estefania was July this is June in and then we have something weirder which I looked up her yawn was weird that's her yawn was weird I know I know I was already scared by that it's weird it's weird but but I need to talk about the date for a second so June 12th in 1991 was not a Thursday the screen says Thursday June 12th 1991 it was not a Thursday it was a Wednesday really yes so first is that on purpose I think it was and I'm gonna tell you why are you ready? I'm gonna look this up while you say this okay so we know that they're playing off of Estefania Story. And so if we go three days before she died, it would have been July 11th, not June 12th, which is weird. So in second, what we're about to learn is that the kids are about to experience a solar eclipse at school. So you might think, oh, maybe they moved the date to like correspond with a solar eclipse that happened that year. But no, there were no solar eclipses seen in Madrid in the entire year of 1991. There was a total solar eclipse July 11th, 1991, but it was seen in the Americas, not in Europe, not in Spain. So then I thought, okay, well, maybe they were trying to like line up Friday the 13th because they do end up hitting like a Friday the 13th in the timing. But then I was like, well, then why not just move the year? Because we aren't in the same month as Estefania's passing. So do we really need to keep the year? But then I found something and I was like, ooh, I don't think this is a coincidence. I think they did it on purpose. So June 15th, 1991, the date that we start the movie on, is the 14th anniversary of the first democratic elections after the death of Franco. It is the anniversary of the first free elections in Spain after Franco's death. So really not just freedom from dictatorship, but also from the rule of the Catholic Church.

Matt 45:55

Also, how does that explain why they use a Thursday instead of a Wednesday?

Tasha 46:00

Because maybe the goal of the calendar change was to get June 15th on a Sunday. On a Sunday, to like really represent the freedom from the church.

Matt 46:16

That's interesting.

Tasha 46:17

Or maybe I'm stretching. And so Paco Plaza, if you're hearing this, let a girl know because I am dying to know. So back to Veronica. Okay, she's definitely her brother's keeper, another clear biblical reference here, and also a clear leftover of the Francoist women's place in the home. Veronica's the definition of a latch key kid, like her mom. Uh worked a lot. Mia.

Matt 46:42

Yeah.

Tasha 46:43

And it also really fits Estefania's like description, the description of Estefania like taking care of her siblings. Um, she gets up, she gets them ready, she feeds them, she cleans the house, she walks them to school, she does all the things. So we find out that her dad has died. Um, she has a single parent mom who uh Anna is basically running the bar down the street from the house, from open to whenever the football fans decide to close it down.

Matt 47:16

Yeah.

Tasha 47:16

Which basically means the only time the kids see her is when they stop by the bar on their way home from school. So 15-year-old Veronica is basically raising her three younger siblings, and that is um Antonito, who is like quite possibly the cutest little boy I've ever seen in my whole life. Like, I just want to gobble him up.

Matt 47:40

He's on par with the low kid from uh House on Haunted Hill. Yes, the younger brother, yes, yes, like they're both like I they're adorable, adorable, yes.

Tasha 47:53

I yes, love these kids. Okay, and then twin sisters, Irene and Lucia, whom I love. These little girls are hilarious. Now, a few things that we see right away, and like this early morning scene at home, and it's really subtle. I didn't catch like the implications of it the first time. Obviously, I saw it happen, I watched it, but I didn't like put together what this meant. When Veronica walks down the hallway, the crucifix is has already started falling off the wall. She has not started her non-church ordained extracurricular activities yet, but the crucifix has already fallen off the wall.

Matt 48:40

Yeah, I didn't notice that until you pointed it out.

Tasha 48:42

Uh-huh. So Jesus is on the floor, but she has not played with anything she was not supposed to play with yet. So that's interesting to me. And I really want to know what that means. What do you think that means?

Matt 49:02

Well, by the movie, we don't know of anything yet, right?

Tasha 49:07

No, because this is like first morning she's gotten up, she's, you know, Antonito has wet the bed, she's taking care of him, she's got the kids making breakfast, she's got, you know, she's just like playing mom. And then the crucifix is on the ground.

Matt 49:31

I don't know what that would mean. Uh I didn't even think about that.

Tasha 49:36

I don't know. I don't know. So she starts the laundry and she's distracted by her motherly duties by a girl her age across the courtyard who's dancing and singing, right? She starts to smile and mimic the girls' movements, and it's so incredibly sad because this girl across the way is like so free. And in this shot, Veronica is so incredibly boxed in. Like she is trapped by her responsibilities. And the second that she starts to like kind of mimic her, and like you know, you think any second now she's gonna start to sing into her own fake microphone, the milk on the stove starts to boil over, and there's just no time for her to be a kid, like it's over. So the girls introduce the eclipse to the audience at this point. They need film negatives to view the eclipse through. So Veronica sneaks into her mom's room so that she doesn't wake her up, and she gets into a shoebox in the closet to grab a photo of her father and um negatives for the girls. And it's the first look we get of Anna, the mom, and she's asleep, but on the nightstand next to her, there's sleeping pills, and Anna has got an eye mask on, so it's like a complete illustration of like she's totally blind, she's totally unaware of what is going on in her own house. It's also the first of many times that we're going to see Veronica in a mirror, so it's this like illustration of the splitting of her personality, and we're gonna we're gonna see that a lot, a lot. Um, it is a very clear use of an illustration for her. At school, Veronica sits through a lesson on the history of the lore of eclipses, and the one thing we know about movies is that whatever the teacher's talking about is subtext for whatever is going to happen next. So you really need to pay attention. Even whenever the character is not paying attention, you need to pay attention.

Matt 51:57

And he's written on the board, right? Movie that they're watching in class, whatever the teacher's saying, whatever it is.

Tasha 52:04

Yes, don't look away, don't close your ears, just pay attention.

Matt 52:08

Makes you want to know like what did Charles uh Charlie Brown's teacher really say?

Tasha 52:14

I know. All of that. Because that would have like made all of the sense. Right. I feel like it would have let us like would she have told us what Lucy's deal was? Why was she so it was, yeah. Probably told him how to kick a football and well, so in this scene, the teacher tells us that an eclipse is subjective, right? So she says, it depends on the subject looking at it. What we see here today is in Madrid is not what they see in Barcelona or in Paris. So it's literally Paco Plaza is just straight up saying, hey guys, everyone sees this story differently. But just in case you aren't sure which one you're supposed to see, here's a hint. And then the teacher goes directly into superstitious explanations for eclipses. So he's like, everybody sees it differently, but I'm gonna tell you which way you're supposed to see it. Let's talk of the movie in like one minute. So she says in many cultures, eclipses were thought to be a good time for sacrifices, even human sacrifices. And she shows an illustration of three Mayan soldiers like cutting out the organs of a man who is very much still alive, and he's laying on this altar screaming. And this image is just so striking because his scream 100% matches Veronica's scream, like his face is Veronica's face, her yawning face, um, and her screaming face, like it is it is Veronica, but I think it's also interesting because the Mayan soldiers that are standing up, one of them is just like really put off by the man's screams. He's like so annoyed by it, and then the other guy is like um just he's looking at it very scientifically. It's like, oh yes, this is happening. Um, but during the whole discussion, Veronica and her friend Rosa are passing notes, and Veronica's revealing like she has something in her bag, and then she gets caught up by this disturbing image on the projector screen. The class breaks to go see the eclipse, and Veronica stands up, and the projector shines an image of an eclipse directly over Veronica's chest, and it's definitely an omen of things to come. You know, we are not we're not doing anything quietly here. Like this is hello, here's the eclipse. We're going for Veronica. So the class disperses, Veronica and Rosa sneak away, but Rosa brings a surprise on Veronica. She's bringing Diana, the girl who got held back, the girl whose boyfriend died in a motorcycle accident, because everyone knows the Ouija board works better in odd numbers. All the other girls are on the roof with the nuns preparing to look at the eclipse through film strips, uh, negatives, and Veronica, Rosa, and Diana are sneaking down into this creepy ass basement to play with the Ouija board. Veronica has brought a photo of her father because she wants to contact him, right? Meanwhile, her sister Lucia is watching the eclipse through the exact negative of the photo of her father on the roof. Because in case y'all have forgotten, there's an eclipse happening outside. So they start the ritual in the basement surrounded by like old desks and teaching aids and religious relics, which has got to play a part into something like that. Just cannot be that's not a coincidence. And they place their fingertips on top of an upside-down glass that sits on the board that Veronica Bob brought. And I saw that uh there's a game that was played in Spain called the Glass Game, and it basically was like their form of the Ouija board until the Ouija board actually entered into Spain, but I couldn't find a whole lot about it, primarily because it's very hard to access Spanish internet things from America whenever you're stuck trying to, you know, cross. It's like trying to go to another dimension, it was very difficult. Um, but the glass game is a thing, and that's why the glass was like such a big part for the Ouija board. Um, but so they sit down, they're doing this, and Rosa is leading the whole thing because Rosa has done this before, she says. And so she tells them to close her eyes and she asks, Is anyone with us? We go back to the roof, like we keep bouncing back and forth, we see the eclipse, and the glass moves, and she says, Rosa says, Do you want to talk to one of us? And the glass jerks to Veronica. And at this point, the you know, the three girls are freaking their shit out as they should. But back on the roof, the kids are starting, they're like the eclipse is starting. Yeah, they're staring down the eclipse. Yeah, and we see the connection of the sun with the negative of their dad as we go back to the same photo of their dad in the basement. And Rosa's like, Do you wanna, do you want to talk to Veronica? Are you, you know, are you the are you her father? But it doesn't say yes, it spells the word spy. Now, first of all, I think the original film does not spell spy, I think it spells something else, and I would really like to know what it is, but I do not know. Um, second of all, listen, ladies, if I say, are you Veronica's father? Do you want to do you want to talk to her? And it spells the word spy. That is not talking, that is stalking, that's peeping tomming, that's not a good time. I don't want to like have a conversation with someone who wants to spy on me. Yeah, no, like where did they think that was a great thing? So that should have been the first that like this is not her dad. And then the glass like moves to this the picture of the sun and it heats up and it burns Rosa and Diana's fingers, but not Veronica's. And Rosa and Diana are like, what the fuck? But Veronica still has her eyes closed, and she is like locked in, and we're at like totally eclipsed outside, and we see the blind nun, and she has a look on her face like her sixth sense knows something's up. And in the basement, but she's on the roof, so you know she's completely separate. So in the basement, the glass shatters, and it cuts Veronica's one finger, Veronica's eyes shoot open, and then her one finger bleeds the amount of like what I imagine lives inside a small rat. There's like so much blood coming out of this one finger, completely covers the sun. The candle just because there's lit candles everywhere. The candle just like knocks over, doesn't it? Knocks over, but not from anyone, it just knocks over. Um, so I think that the demon knocked it over and uh catches the manual on fire. Rosa stands up and starts like stomping it out, and then and then it's dark. You know, it's dark. Yeah. And you remember that, like the teacher said earlier, darkness will reign over the light. And you're like, oh, here's the darkness. And then Rosa and Diana finally find like a flashlight, and they scare the shit out of each other and me. Like I jumped so hard whenever they finally like turned on a flashlight. And they look and the board is broken in half, and they're like, Where's Veronica? And she's laying down in this like supine position, and Rosa screams for Diana to go get help. And Diana says something bitchy about how they're all gonna get in trouble now. She goes to get help, and Veronica is in this like weird ass trance, muttering something to herself, and Diana leans down to or Rosa leans down to like hear the whisper, and then she hears it, and we don't know what it is, but she backs away afraid, and then Veronica, and I don't know what I I'm plugging my ears, I don't want to know what it is because that's the part of the scary story.

Matt 1:01:21

Something's gonna go down.

Tasha 1:01:23

Well, we don't find out, so you could have had your fingers out of your ears because no one knows except for Rosa, what Veronica says, and then Veronica sits up like she's a springboard that has been released. She comes up at like a 90-degree angle, and her mouth does that weird wide open scream again. Her body is totally erect, and then all of the lights overhead flicker on, and the light bulb fades into what we think is the eclipse, but then it it turns out to be the nurse's like beady little flashlight, and so we get Veronica in a mirror again, like the nurse has her set up and she's she it's she's sitting in front of a mirror in the nurse's office, which I think is really interesting because I saw this one thing and I couldn't find it again, which was really frustrating to me. But I saw this one thing about mirrors, and there's like a lore somewhere about if you are in a mirror, but you are you have your back to a mirror, something about it like taking your soul, like capturing your soul, because you don't have the ability to control like your vision or like your um not your impression, but like your reflection? Yeah, like you're not controlling your reflection in the mirror, and so like it it it can take your soul from you, and so I think it's interesting that it's like behind her, but I could not find that.

Matt 1:03:08

I'm gonna go to the bathroom different every time now. There's a mirror right there.

Tasha 1:03:14

Well, like mirrors are portals, and like they're not supposed to face each other. We have so many mirrors in our in our place that face each other, and I think about that all the time. I'm like, ugh, we we gotta stop that. I'm gonna start putting sheets over all of our mirrors. So the other thing in myth, mirrors reflect like the soul and the true nature, but they also trap the soul, like we talked about. They hold significance in different cultures and lores and art forms, but they represent the duality of a person's identity. They uh represent like a fractured reality or psychosis, which is definitely a question of this movie. The the big question of this movie is is Veronica really possessed or is Veronica suffering some sort of like mental breakdown? Um, false identities, internal struggles of good and evil. Um and in the diner, we see the duality of Anna, the mom. We see her reflected, and you know, she's like playing this dual role of like this adult woman, worker, but then also, you know, she's a working woman, but she's also a mother when the children show up. In Anna's closet mirror, we see Veronica and Anna in the mirror together, and I think that one's really interesting because it's like this shared caretaker child role, and it kind of illustrates like the parentification of Veronica and Anna's dependence on Veronica to be like the mom as much as she considers herself to be the mom. And so it like they have a very complicated, tortured relationship that way, and then in the nurse's office, we see this like she's obviously in need of a parent. The girl was just having some kind of episode in the basement, and then the nurse says that they tried to reach her mom and there was no luck, and then the conversation turns really weird. She's 15. We find out that she's in this like perpetual, stunted development, and the nurse gets like really weirdly judgy about it, and she's like, You're 15 and you've not had your period. The girl's got braces on. She's like, she's got glow-in-the-dark stickers on her ceiling. She's got this, you know, she's got stuffed animals on her bed that she has guard things, but she has to be a mom to her brother and sisters, like, you know. So the nurse is useless and is like, go home and eat some red meat. Veronica goes home, but not before picking up her sisters. And doing like a little vow with them to not tell mom about cutting her finger. And at one point, Irene points out that Sister Death, the blind nun, is staring at Veronica from up above.

Matt 1:06:15

Yeah.

Tasha 1:06:16

And they go to the bar and Veronica tries to talk to her mom. She's like trying so hard, and Anna's just like, I don't have time for this. Go get your brother. You know, go home. So that's what Veronica does. They get home and Veronica tries to put the board up on her wardrobe, and she closes the door and it falls off. She goes in, she puts it back up, it falls off. She goes back in, she's like, Okay, I'm just gonna put it under the bed then. It wants to be on the floor, I'll let it be on the floor. And this is when she asks the stuffed animal to guard it because she is a child raising children. Yeah. Like there's so many things she does where I'm just like, you are a child. And then we have one of the most disturbing scenes of the whole damn movie. And it's the one where she goes to eat. Oh, I don't know what to think of it. Like they're sitting at the table and they're eating meatballs. Just meatballs, no sides, no anything. And it's not the macaroni, it's not the leftover macaroni that mom sent home with them as meatballs. But I mean, she is eating red meat like the nurse told her to. So but she goes to take a bite of her meatball and freezes with the fork mid-air, and she starts shaking. Irene's in the pantry getting shelf stable milk, and Antonito's making like the cutest face because he thinks that Veronica is like playing. Yeah.

Matt 1:07:46

Yes.

Tasha 1:07:47

Um, and Lucia's like, um, Irene, Veronica's all frozen up. And Veronica slowly like gets the meatball.

Matt 1:08:00

Well, they haven't paid attention yet, except for Ant Annita.

Tasha 1:08:03

Well, at this point, Lucia's like noticed it. Okay. And Veronica gets the meatball in her mouth, and her mouth just like turns instantly into a blender. And this like blended meatball just starts coming down the front of her like frozen face with her teeth stuck and the meatballs coming out. Irene comes out of the pantry area, sees what's happening, drops the milk, and as soon as the milk that has spilled onto the floor runs into Veronica's foot, it snaps, snaps her out. The spell's broken, and she spits out the meatball, she wipes her face, she jumps up to go get cleaned up. Demon. Like, like she goes in the bathroom, she takes her shirt off, and there's like a handprint on her shoulder, and it's you know mysteriously the same size as her own handprint. I just want to point that out. I don't know if you notice that, but it's also the first manifestation that we see of an injury on Veronica's body. Like she starts having these injuries come up, but but I don't know, meatball, demon, milk. What do you think?

Matt 1:09:35

I I don't know. The little boy loved it. He was smiling the whole time. I mean, it could have been a seizure.

Tasha 1:09:43

It could have been, yes. That is a thought.

Matt 1:09:46

And so like I still don't understand the significance of when the milk or liquid. That wasn't my phone.

Tasha 1:09:55

That wasn't your phone, it was mine.

Matt 1:09:58

I don't understand the significance of liquid hitting her that made her snap out of it. Did you ever look into that?

Tasha 1:10:06

I I did some research. Are you more learning? So obviously, milk's the first nourishment that we receive as infants. Right? So we have this like motherhood theme coming through again, but also uh in lore and myth, milk is like a sign of purity and abundance. So you've also got like in biblical history the land of Canaan and the land flowing with milk and honey. So it's like that abundance thing. The one thing I didn't know is that milk was uh often associated with a pure sacrifice and with lunar forces. So we've got like the moon again coming up. Um and then the moon.

Matt 1:11:05

Because right. Well, I mean, so like biblically, like do they use like wine and milk in both sacrifices type things?

Tasha 1:11:12

No, that one I don't know.

Matt 1:11:14

Okay.

Tasha 1:11:16

Something to look into.

Matt 1:11:17

You go ahead with the moon.

Tasha 1:11:19

Okay, so the moon in astrology, the moon is the mother. Uh, so we've got the moon again, the mother in astrology, and also linked to women's menses. Like the moon, you know, the moon goes through a cycle of 28 days, so does uh women's cycles, which Veronica has not had. And then in ancient cultures, sacrifices of milk were understood as rituals of purification, like mother's milk offering maternal protection. I don't know, but whatever it is that did the trick. And after the cleanup, the phone rings, so Lucia answers it, and it's Rosa, and Rosa's like, Oh, yeah, I'm not coming over because I need to go run errands with my mom. So Veronica calls her back, and Rosa's mom answers and is like, Isn't she and aren't she and Diana coming to meet you?

Matt 1:12:16

Yeah.

Tasha 1:12:17

And Veronica's like, that kid cannot catch break. Yes. So another one of my favorite camera shots happens here. We see the outside of the building, and there's a shadow coming over it because the sun is setting it, and it is a clear depiction of the eclipse. It is totally reenacting the eclipse, the moon coming in over the sun. We see the shadow coming in over the building.

Matt 1:12:52

Yeah, see, I didn't even think about that. See, this is why you're leading this thing.

Tasha 1:12:57

So, all I could think whenever I saw it was like something wicked this way comes.

Matt 1:13:01

I was just like thinking, that's a time channel trainer.

Tasha 1:13:06

So Veronica's giving Antonito a bath, right? Yeah. And he's singing the most obnoxious commercial jingle ever. Cynthia, which we we've got the words for. I'm not gonna sing it, but I am gonna tell you what it says. It says, Centa gives me time to enjoy. Cyntea gives me a shiny floor. Oh, time for myself. Oh, time for life. Cyntea gives me time to enjoy. That's the words for Cynthia. And I think the reason why Centella is the song is because Veronica doesn't have time for herself. I think that's why that's the jingle. I think that's why they chose that one because it's like all about there's this magical thing that like miraculously gives you time to enjoy, takes away all of the like hardship, and there's time to enjoy. There's time for yourself, there's time for life. There's, you know, like Veronica could totally use a magic tool to have time for herself, for you know, time to enjoy life. So Veronica hears this loud noise in her room. She thinks it's the twins, but it is not the twins. So she goes in to try and figure out like what the hell it is. Uh, she leaves Antonito in the tub. I would like to point out that the water is off.

Matt 1:14:31

Yeah, the water is off.

Tasha 1:14:32

Okay. And there is not a sign of humidity in this room. No. That bathroom is like clear.

Matt 1:14:42

No, nothing is touched on her way out of the or out of the bathroom.

Tasha 1:14:47

So she goes in a room, all of the electronics go haywire, the door slams shut, she can't get back out. Antonito's screaming for her, and she finally gets the door open, runs in. The hot water is on. The room is extremely steamy. Um, she has to like cut through steam, like a knife through butter to get to Antonito. And then she gets him, she pulls him out, and that poor baby's body is like, he's got like he looks sunburned. Yeah. I mean, like all the way up to where the water was on his belly. She dries him off. Ugh. I just hate it so much. So she's getting him ready for bed. You know, it's nighttime. She's apologizing to him for making the water too hot.

Matt 1:15:41

Yeah.

Tasha 1:15:42

And he says, it's okay. It wasn't Veronica. And she's like, what? And he's like, you didn't put the water on hot. And she's like, what did you say? And then he falls asleep because he's so cute. You know, he just is. He's the cutest thing in the world. Yeah. So now Veronica's the only one awake. And she's doing the dishes because she's the only one who does anything in this house. And there's a glass sitting on the counter drawing, and she goes to put her finger on top of it, like she did during the Ouija ceremony. And when she puts her finger on it, there's like a bright flash of red light. And Centa commercial flashes on the TV that was just off, like super loud. No one needs Centella that loud. And she goes into the living room, freaked out, to shut it off. And as she's walking, this is probably my favorite scene. It's a good one, but it's hard to explain. I was thinking about this. Their apartment is so confusing to explain. It's really fun, but I don't think that in America we have anything to explain the layout.

Matt 1:16:59

Maybe like a penthouse. But it's not like a building that has like a little U thing in it.

Tasha 1:17:04

Yeah, I mean, like everything in the US is like a box. And it's just a box. And so when you're looking through windows, there's like a courtyard in the middle of the building.

Matt 1:17:21

Like small.

Tasha 1:17:22

Yeah.

Matt 1:17:23

So like you can see the girls' room from it. Yeah.

Tasha 1:17:26

In Veronica's room, you're looking into she's got a window that looks through the laundry room, and you can see across the laundry room through another window, and see the girl on the other side. You can see her apartment, but on the other side of her room, you can also see through another window that sees the girls' room. There's also a window that looks through the bathroom. And there, like there's all these windows, which lets a lot of light in. Like it's really great. I love it. Um, but when you're watching the movie and you're not from Europe, you're looking at it like, where are they? Don't understand where we are in this house.

Matt 1:18:16

Um apartment, really.

Tasha 1:18:19

Yeah. So in this shot, she's walking through the kitchen towards the living room. The hallway runs alongside the kitchen dining room, and the living room sits at the end. And the camera shot, the camera is sitting in the living room watching her walk towards it. But it's a wide shot, so you see down the hallway as well.

Matt 1:18:48

Part of the way, yeah.

Tasha 1:18:50

And what you see is that moving in tandem with Veronica is a dark, viny.

Matt 1:18:59

Well, it's his dark figure right now. You can't really see the texture of him, can you?

Tasha 1:19:05

A little bit you can, but it's like alien. It's like our area 51-shaped alien.

Matt 1:19:14

The same one from Science that he saw in the video. Yes.

Tasha 1:19:17

It is the guy from Science. He's gotten down off the roof and he is in Veronica's hallway.

Matt 1:19:23

He's there first.

Tasha 1:19:24

Yes, because it's 1991. So he he went from Veronica's hallway to their and and and to the doc to the veterinarians. Uh, eventually he gets his fingers cut off. I hope you all have seen signs. We're ruining some stuff. Um, but so he's walking in tandem alongside Veronica.

Matt 1:19:46

Yeah, I didn't think about that, but they were walking in tandem.

Tasha 1:19:49

And when she gets to the end of that walk where that doorway is, she crosses to the TV and he's no longer standing. And that when she crosses, he's not there. She goes to the TV, the camera is behind her, and she's I'm gonna be honest though, I think I see him walk. You think you see?

Matt 1:20:14

Yes.

Tasha 1:20:14

Oh, now I want to go back and watch it again.

Matt 1:20:16

It's just like a glimpse because you're not paying attention to that. Oh if you saw him in the the hallway, that's one thing. I was listening to a podcast earlier, and they didn't mention him in the hallway at all. They just mentioned what you're about to say. Right. But I I think I saw him go from the hallway behind like just a glimpse of the corner of the screen uh of the actual not the TV screen in the butt behind her. I felt like I saw him or some whatever it was walk there.

Tasha 1:20:50

Oh it's a great scene. Yeah, she she kneels down in front of the TV, she turns off the TV, and then the girls I mentioned it briefly, but the girls have these walkie-talkies that they're constantly talking to each other through, which is just the funniest thing. And she hears it make a noise, she leans down to pick it up, and when she leans down, the camera doesn't go with her, it stays in place, and you see this uh demonic alien figure's body in the TV screen. He is behind her, yeah, and she comes back up, but she's not looking at the screen when she's doing that, and when she comes back up, she's covering you know where he would be, so she wouldn't see him anyway, because now she's covering that space where his reflection is, right? And so she stands up and goes back through the living room, and when she does, he's still standing there, and she's completely oblivious, and he just watches her walk and leave the room.

Matt 1:22:11

And it is I was expecting him to not be there.

Tasha 1:22:16

I was still there, I was like, that's even creepier. It was it's it is unnerving. So but all I speaking of signs, that whole time, all I can think of is that scene in signs when um his brother is in the is in the coat closet watching the the scene of the um birthday party in Mexico, and the little boy is yelling about the alien, and he's like, behind, behind, and all I could think was behind Veronica. Um yeah, that's all I could think. So yeah, uh it's a good time. It's it's one of the creepiest scenes. It rivals the meatball. I gotta say. That's a pretty good scene. It's a pretty good scene. So now Veronica has the first of her very disturbing nightmares, and I it's her first introduction to our our creepy alien guy. Um, but it is in her dream. So it's one of those wake, like I'm waking up in a dream, and I don't realize that I'm waking up in a dream. Yeah, I think that I've just woken up. So she wakes up, um she she is in her bed, but you again you see her in a mirror because the door to her wardrobe has opened, and you see her laying in her bed, but you also see her laying in her bed in the mirror, and she hears something, she gets up, she goes over, and all three of her siblings are hiding in the wardrobe. Irene's I think it was just the girls. No, he Antonito is sitting next to her next to the girls, yeah. And Irene's teeth are chattering, and Veronica's like, WTF, why are you in my bed? And um, or why are you in my bedroom? And she hears her name behind her, and then the wardrobe door slams shut, and she turns and looks, and her dead father is standing in the corner of her room naked, and all of his birthday suit glory, uh, just letting it all hang out in the corner, and he just keeps saying her name over and over and over again, and he's walking towards her saying her name, and she's backing away from him, like Papa, and the audience is like, Why the hell is he naked, Veronica? And I don't know, like maybe she saw him in the morgue.

Matt 1:24:59

I don't know.

Tasha 1:25:00

Naked?

Matt 1:25:01

I'm gonna be honest, when I saw that part, I did not know that was her dad. I thought that was some other peepee guy.

Tasha 1:25:07

I have so many questions. There's speculation online that him being naked is indicative of previous sexual assault and that that also ties in some way to the meatball and uh some mattress stuff and that we're gonna get into, but like I I don't know. I really wonder if it's literally just she saw his uh body when it was getting ready for burial or something. Because why would you reach out to creepy pervy daddy after he's dead? Like why would you be like my my father's dead he sexually molested me? This is who I want to talk to through the Ouija board. You know? These are my questions.

Matt 1:26:12

I I wouldn't think that she would want to talk to him.

Tasha 1:26:16

Right? Well, she falls back on the bed, and when she does, all of these black viny arms burst out through her mattress and hold her down. And this is where you start going, oh, maybe this is happening in her mind, and she is crazy because they strap her down on her bed like you would see somebody being strapped down in like psychiatric ward. Yes, which also makes me think about the girls in the board in Spain.

Matt 1:27:04

Oh, yeah. That is a good picture.

Tasha 1:27:10

So she's strapped down, and then Papa turns into the black viny guy of our demonic alien nightmares, and his arm gets really long and starts going towards her throat. And it he mimics one of the pictures from the teacher's eclipse um lessons, the one before the Mayan picture, and his arm starts stretching towards her mouth.

Matt 1:27:45

Yeah.

Tasha 1:27:46

Um, and it starts going like it's gonna go down her throat, like this one picture did. And then she wakes up, you know, gasping from her nightmare. And now it is Friday the 13th. It's 828. And if that was not scary enough, Antonito scares the shit out of her. He is standing next to the bed. And he says, it just leaked out. And in some ways, it's like, is Antonito like, is that line supposed to be like a secret of something? Like the demon, like just a little bit of the demon leaked into the real world here. But also, he he wet the bed.

Matt 1:28:34

Yeah.

Tasha 1:28:35

It just leaked out.

Matt 1:28:36

I don't think of the demon at all when he said that.

Tasha 1:28:39

Poor Anthony too. But Veronica realizes the alarm clock did not go off. There was no rooster.

Matt 1:28:46

Yeah. Because they're late.

Tasha 1:28:49

And they are late. And she gets them up and they're running to school. And the girls are like, why is it always Veronica's fault? Why does she always make us late? Because she's a child parenting.

Matt 1:29:06

Yeah.

Tasha 1:29:06

Hello. So and then they get there, and the teacher that lets them in says something about, made it by the skin of your teeth.

Matt 1:29:18

And I you researched that too.

Tasha 1:29:22

I didn't because I was like, we're like this is so long already. Um, but that is a very unnerving phrase, and I don't like it.

Matt 1:29:32

Yeah.

Tasha 1:29:32

Made it by the skin of your teeth.

Matt 1:29:34

Because your teeth don't have skin.

Tasha 1:29:36

I don't like it. I don't like it. So now we're in class and we're studying Becker's legends. And again, if you weren't paying attention, what were you even doing? Subtext, subtext, subtext. So this is another foreshadow, what what our our nun teacher is teaching us. Uh Becker's real name is Gustavo Adolfo Claudio Domiguez Bestida. And he was a poet and an uh an artist, and uh he wrote, he he was amazing. Um he is one of Spain's greatest like heroes of art. Um 19th century. He wrote 14 legends that are kind of bound together, and they're regarded as some of the most famous Spanish literature of of all time. He's Spain's Shakespeare, essentially. These stories that are being taught, she's specifically teaching the Mount of Souls and the Kiss, which are two of the legends. In both, and this is really um common in his legends, the protagonist has been warned about a danger and a supernatural law that they should not desecrate. The character does exactly what he's been warned against, and then he suffers death as a punishment. So the teacher says no one escapes the consequences of passing the limit that divides reality from fantasy. So you know, Veronica must die. But Veronica doesn't know because she's too busy worrying about the fact that Rosa is passing Diana notes instead of her. Um, so she's frustrated, so she asks to go to the bathroom, and instead she goes straight past the bathroom and goes to the basement to hang out with her new bestie Sister Death and um get the Ouija manual that they left there the last time they were there. And Sister Death is like, listen, you F-A-O, no, F-A-F-O. Which I was really proud of myself for being able to put that in here. I feel like I'm with the times. Michael, I'm one of the I'm one of the cool kids.

Matt 1:32:01

I'll look that up later.

Tasha 1:32:02

You don't know what it is?

Matt 1:32:04

I don't I don't know off the top of my head.

Tasha 1:32:08

Well, she tells her it's not who you wanted to talk to, it's who you did talk to. And she's like, You got to protect your siblings. You aren't alone. Someone answered your call, and now they walk with you. Congratulations. The bell rings, Veronica takes off. Outside, she sees Rosa. Rosa's with Diana, and she calls her over and asks Rosa, Are you seeing things? And Rosa's like, What are you talking about? It's a baby's game. I'm like, Rosa, come on, dude. You were the one that was like, Oh yeah, I've totally done this before. Now all of a sudden it's a baby's game. So Diana wants to go to the mall and is like, Are you coming to our kick-ass party? Oh, you're probably babysitting.

Matt 1:32:53

At Rosa's place. Right? Yes. It's at Rosa's.

Tasha 1:32:58

And then she's like, Rosa, let's go. And I just want to like throat punch her. I was, I, oh, and Rosa's like, um, I don't know. Try to make it. And she leaves, like the traitor that she is. And so Veronica walks home alone on the bridge, and all I can think is, Veronica, where are the kids? She's all by herself. Where are the children? But now she's home, and the kids are with her, so they got home somehow. But Antonito's trying to figure out how to play Simon, which, you know, makes many uh entrances in this movie. And the twins are doing their homework, and Lucia's trying to cheat, which is really like adorable. Veronica's trying to figure out what the burned manual says about closing out the Ouija ritual. Um, because she realizes they didn't close it out, but she can't read the closing ritual because the demon burned it all up with the candle. So the kids are being loud and she's about to like completely mom out. Um, but she remembers that her bestie sister death was like protect the babies. So she goes to her room and she starts going through a ton of these like occult rags, and we realize oh, wait, she is totally obsessed. This is not the only one she has, she has a ton of them, and she finds one that has like a whole bunch of these Viking sigils of protections, and she starts tracing them onto paper in crown because she is a child, and she hangs them in the kids' room above the beds. And then the neighbor below is at the door complaining because she says the kids are being loud, and she asks to speak with Anna, and Veronica's like, Yeah, I'll tell her you called. And the lady's like, All right, yeah, if you see her. Um, by the way, deal with the sludge dripping through your bedroom floor into my house.

Matt 1:35:20

And then from your bedroom.

Tasha 1:35:21

Yeah.

Matt 1:35:22

Yeah.

Tasha 1:35:22

And that's the first time that we kind of get the hint that like there's some kind of like ecoplasma. Ecoplasm? Echoplasm.

Matt 1:35:32

Ecoplasma. Ecoplasm.

Tasha 1:35:36

I don't know. Slimer has been here. Okay. Slimer's been here. Something has happened. So now it's late. Veronica's doing laundry. She's the only one awake. And across the courtyard, the previously singing girl is now getting homework help from her very healthy and alive father. And Veronica hears something from the girls' room and goes in and is like, Why are you guys awake? But the girls are not awake. Um, but before she gets there, she looks in and through the window she sees the figure of the demon.

Matt 1:36:17

Yeah.

Tasha 1:36:18

And she runs in, um, freezes in the doorroom, like cannot move. Something's holding her back, and we see a handprint, like bruises appear on her arm. It's another manifestation of a physical appearance of something on her body. And then we see like the shadow of the demon go from where Veronica's standing, but just the shadow, and it goes along the walls over to Lucia's bunk, gets on Lucia and is like choking her. Veronica finally breaks free and gets on top of Lucia and is now the one choking her.

Matt 1:37:12

Yeah.

Tasha 1:37:13

And Irene is screaming from her top bunk. And Lucia's like, Why are you choking me? And Veronica says, No, no, no, no. I wasn't choking you. I was saving you. There was someone here, you can't see him. We, you know, we let's all move to the living room. Like, we've got to stay safe. Everybody, get your get your mattresses and let's go to the living room. So they all go to the living room um to sleep. And they're like watching TV, and there's a scary movie on, very suspenseful music, and they see something like through the there's like um frosted glass that they can see in the hallway, and there's a figure that fits the shape of the demon. And Veronica's freaking out. The girls are freaking out, everyone's scared. They get up, Veronica gets like a wine. What am I trying to say? Like a decanter? No. I'm going to open the wine and I use a wine opener.

Matt 1:38:26

Wine bottle opener. Oh yes.

Tasha 1:38:32

She uses a bottle opener, a corkscrew. Oh, yeah. Uh like she uses that. She gets it in the shape of a cross. The girls are, you know, the kids are hiding behind her. The door opens, and the demonic figure turns into their mother. And Anna is like super pissed that they're all in the living room. She's like, you know, what is happening? Veronica is like visibly crying. And Anna's just pissed that Veronica let things get out of control. And so she gets everybody in bed and she's like, Why can't you be an adult? You're making my life a living hell. And Veronica's like, she literally looks like she's going to commit patricide in that moment. Like, she looks like she could kill Anna in that moment. And Anna's just like, I'm really tired. Grow up. There are there are visible bruises on this child's body. Her arms have these gigantic marks on them. And Anna is completely oblivious to it. And so at this point, I thought like, maybe they're not there. Like if Anna's not seeing these marks, maybe they're not really there. You know what I mean? Because they are so dark. They're so visible. And I just thought there's no way that a mom would just like not see that. So they they go to bed, and it's morning, and the twins come jumping in, screaming that they're hungry. And Veronica's like, please just let me sleep in. And Irene's like, I got an idea. Let's play a game. Give me your arm. And then Lucia reaches down and takes a huge ass bite out of Veronica's right hand. And Irene takes a bite out of her left arm, and the girls are laughing, and they're like cannibalistic zombies, and there's like blood, and and Anna starts to come in. Antonito comes in and he climbs up and he's like jumping on the bed, and then he starts choking Veronica, and Veronica's screaming for her mother, and Anna walks over her and is like, I need you to grow up. And all the while the music from the scary movie is playing from the night before. And Anna puts her hand over Veronica's head, palm down, and starts moving her open palm over her body. And when she gets to her groin, she like clinches her hand into a fist. And when she does that, just a ton of blood appears, and the movie music gets really loud. The kids are holding her down on the bed now, exactly like the demons were holding her down in the first stream. She is held down like she is in a hospital bed again. But in the first stream, her dad was the demon, and he was shoving his down, his hand down her throat, taking her voice. And now it's a second nightmare, and it's her mom that's the bad guy, if you will, and she's causing her to bleed and saying grow up and forcing her into womanhood. So it's like, I just think it's really interesting that, like, in the first dream, her voice was taken from her, and in the second dream, she was forced into womanhood, but in both of them, she was stripped of uh choice. In both of them, she was forced down. She she wasn't given, it was like regardless of choice, this is your lot in life, you know. And for the second one, it's like, oh great, now you're a woman. You you get to be a mother and have kids, even though you're already raising three that and yourself, you know what I mean? So she wakes up, and it's Saturday, June 14th. It's uh 10:40 a.m. And she gets out of bed, and it's so creepy how she gets out of bed because like she does it's like a she looks like a vampire rising out of a coffin, like it just all one motion. There's no bending of a body, there's no anything, and her period has started, so now she's like scrubbing the mattress, but while she's scrubbing the mattress, she smells something franc, and then she finds underneath her mattress the source of the like sludge that the neighbor complained about, and so she goes out, she like loses her shit on the girls for not having breakfast ready. She she loses it then on Antonito because he's got books down that but he can't read. But he says, No, it's okay because dad came and read it to me, and he's gonna come again tonight and he's gonna take me to where he lives. And Veronica's like, uh nope. Like, yeah, you know, it's creepy when the little boy sees yeah, she says, if he comes back, plug your ears and call me really loud. And I think the Antonito of it all is really confounding to me. Because, like, what is Antonito seeing? The water is on, and he's like, That you didn't turn the water on, and he's saying that his dad came and read to him, like, what is Antonito seeing? I need to know what Antonito's what is happening with Antonito. I don't know. I don't know, it's really weird. So she checks all the kids' mattresses, they all have sludge on them. When she leaves Antonito's room, the hand, so the the sludge is in like the shape of a figure, which is like creepy as the the hand of the figure opens up when Veronica walks away, which is really weird. And I played it back like 18 times because I I was trying to figure out did I imagine that? Did I see something weird? It didn't do it on any of the other mattresses, but it did it in Antonito's room. Yeah um, and so she freaks out, she takes the kids to Anna at work, and she's like, Yeah, gotta go do homework with Rosa. I need you to watch the kids, which hasn't talked to Rosa in a while, right? But like I think it's it says something when the 15-year-old has to tell the mom, I need you to watch your kids. Yeah, that's like you know how like um we never had to do this. I never had to do this because you were a good father. But like when men say, I'll babysit the kids so that you can go do something to their wives, and it's like it's not babysitting, you're the parents.

Matt 1:46:54

Yeah, right.

Tasha 1:46:56

This was totally that moment. Can you watch the kids? I need to go do homework. Like she shouldn't have to be asked to watch the kids, she is the parent. But that was the moment I was having while I was watching it. So she goes, she does not go to Rosa, she goes again to Bestie Sister Death.

Matt 1:47:19

Yeah, on a weekend, in the basement. What is this woman like in session?

Tasha 1:47:25

Why is she in the basement all the time?

Matt 1:47:28

Sister Death?

Tasha 1:47:29

Yes. That is a big ass school.

Matt 1:47:32

Well, I mean, Sister Death lives there, so she doesn't care.

Tasha 1:47:36

There's nowhere else for her to go.

Matt 1:47:39

But I think sh I mean, if Sister Death kind of knows what's going on, she probably knows like this is where she's gonna be.

Tasha 1:47:49

So you think she knew to be there? I think she did. Well, she's talking to her bestie and she's like, look, nothing's working. Amulets and crosses don't work. Oh, because I didn't mention when, or maybe I did, but when she drew those amulets, the demon just like set the papers on fire. And so Sister Death is like, crosses, God has nothing to do with this, leave him out of it. And I was like, uh, okay, well, then who do you lean on in that? Like, so she tells Veronica they have to go out the same way they came in through the door Veronica opened. And this this part, I wrote it down because I was like, What? So Sister Death says, bid them farewell, then you have to destroy it. And Veronica says, the Ouija board, and Sister Death says, No, the door. She's like really mad. She's like screaming, and she goes, You have to do right what you did wrong. The answer is in the books, and so she tells Veronica, you gotta bid them farewell, and then whenever it's done, you've got to destroy the door. And Veronica goes, she she checks the books, but of course, you know, the demon burned it during the ceremony. So she has to go to the newsstand where she bought the book to begin with. And there's a big ass sticker on it that says as seen on TV. And so I think that's why we have such a focus on that sticker in that moment, is because Paco Plaza is trying to remind us that, like, this was such a moment in time for them. The media was really driving a lot of this, and it was really driving it for Veronica. She it was all over. Their media at the time. And it was, it plays a huge part in a Stephania story later, too. Um, so Veronica sits down on a swing set because she's a child, and you know, she needs to read her super duper dangerous Ouija board manual, and she figures out that if you don't say goodbye, whatever you talk to stays with you. So she's got to try again. So she goes to Rosa's party to tell her and Diana they've got to do this, like close it out. And she is looking rough, like everything that has happened to her has happened to her body. She is on the brink, and she gets in a fight with some boys at the party, and after slapping one of them, they like throw her out. So she's standing outside the door like a vampire who's like had its invite revoked to the house. Like she can't go back in. And she's screaming for Rosa. Rosa comes to the door and is like, you don't remember what you whispered to me, do you? And this is where we finally find out what happened in that basement. And Veronica's like, no, I don't, I don't know. And Rosa says, You told me you were going to die today. Technically, she's wrong. She's gonna die at like, you know, two o'clock in the morning tomorrow, but okay. Um, but she's the first person to like actually pay attention to the state Veronica's in, and she sees the bites on Veronica's hand from Veronica's dream, and she calls it out and she she asks her about it. But what I think is really interesting is that she says, Did you do that to yourself? She didn't ask her what happened to you, did someone do that to you? She said, Did you do that to yourself?

Matt 1:52:12

Yeah.

Tasha 1:52:13

And so that made me go, like, does Veronica like have a history of hurting herself? Or like, is there what would make her ask her if she's hurt herself instead of asking her, like, who's hurt you? You know what I mean? I thought that was really weird. Yeah. Rosa turns around and walks off, and then Veronica screams for her three times.

Matt 1:52:38

There's a number three.

Tasha 1:52:39

There's that number three. And she is denied three times, like Peter. And um, and then we and then we experience this like weird AF time lapse where Veronica's walking home and she passes herself on the street.

Matt 1:53:02

Yes, I this camera work is really fun. It really is, but it I I don't understand, like at some point, like you could tell they filmed it in reverse because the way her hair's flowing and the way she turns.

Tasha 1:53:14

She so like she when when it's just the first of her, she's walking what we think is forward, but everything around her is walk is moving backwards. Yeah, and then she passes herself, and that version of herself seems to be walking, like they're walking, correct? Yes, and then they both stop, and their hair's blowing, and when she turns to look, because of how her hair is blowing, you like can't see the face of the other one whenever it turns to look at her, and then they like both walk away from each other, but there's like this duality again of Veronica, but the whole world is just breaking around her. I mean, yeah, her mental state is definitely broken. There has been a shattering at this point for sure, but it's just very weird. And she goes, she goes to get the kids home from the bar. She walks in and she's like, Mama, can you please come home? She's like, It doesn't come when you're there. And Anna just like kind of rolls her eyes and is like, Oh, here we go again. And she's like, Can't you just take the kids home? They can't stay here forever. I'm like, Come on, lady. She's just constantly giving her kids her leftovers, like figuratively, literally. So Veronica takes the kids home and gets the Ouija board from her bag, and she is like, Okay, we're you know, we're gonna do this. The kids are gonna do this. Like, I have no choice. So you see her, she's like taking the two halves of this broken Ouija board. She goes to put them together, and when she does it, you see the girl across the way get in suite with a boy, and she like puts the two pieces together, and as she does so, the girl across the courtyard is like in sunlight. But when Veronica does that, it closes out that image of the girl, but also puts Veronica in shadow. Like we're getting, you know, this is the end. It's already raining outside, the rain has already started, so we know that we're we're getting to a close. And Veronica tells the kids we're gonna play a game, which is also what Irene said to her before they became cannibalistic. So that can't be good. So she tells the girls, get all the candles and bring them in here, and then she she gives Antonito probably like the most complicated job out of everybody. I'm like, you just gave the four-year-old the hardest job, the most complicated job. You gave it to the four-year-old. She gives him the book with the Viking protection sigils and a box of crowns, and says, Go draw these in the hallway, all over the walls.

Matt 1:56:31

And he does well, but then he turns to other pages and starts drawing those ones.

Tasha 1:56:40

And those are symbols of invocation. Yeah. Oh, Veronica. So the only source of protection you have you entrusted to a preschooler who can't read.

Matt 1:56:54

Yeah.

Tasha 1:56:54

I'm like, surely nothing will go wrong. Surely it's 11:45 p.m. We know at the beginning of the film it was 1.35 a.m. So we're in the last few hours of our story. Um, Veronica's taping up the Ouija board. The twins are putting birthday candles in flower pots. Antonito's doing the Lord's work in the hallway. And um, you know, everyone in the audience is wondering why, in God's name, she gave Antonito this job, and Irene and Lucia the job of stacking birthday candles in a pot of dirt. And while Antonito's drawing, the crucifix falls off the wall. So now they're in the living room, the candles are lit, the girls all sit with their fingers on a glass. Antonito has been regulated to his armchair quarterback position, and they close their eyes. And Veronica asks, is there anyone there with them? And to quote, 10 things I hate about you, the shit hitteth the faneth. Um, she says, We're here to say goodbye to you. You need to leave. And the board says, No. And she says, Um, listen, this is this is uh, you know, she like this is clearly not what she had in mind, and it's clearly not what the demon had in mind. And she says, This is not your house, and the doors in the house are like swinging open of their own accord. It has clearly been invoked by Antonito's killer art skills, yeah. And she was like, We command you to leave. And the glass says no. And Veronica says, This isn't your house, and the glass says, Yes. And the demon's like, Listen, I don't agree with you. Like, it's mine. I was invited in. Um, this is my house now, so this isn't working. So Veronica decides to read how to properly conclude the ceremony because she didn't do that before they started, and I don't understand why she didn't do that before they started. She's a child, she's a child. So she reads that they need to sing a mantra or a soft song, but they need a song that they all know. And Antonito to the rescues, like Centaya.

Matt 1:59:25

That that screams, we're closing the door on you.

Tasha 1:59:31

Thanks, Aunt Man. So the noises are freaking the girls out, they're not really like singing along. The rooster is crowing in the bathroom like it has never crowed before. It almost sounds like the rooster is dying. The camera's like spinning around the girls, and um the doors are swinging open, slamming shut. No one person is continuously singing. And one of the twins says that it stinks in the room. There's knocking that's coming in sets of threes, and then the tape comes undone on the board, and the board rips apart. The candles blow out, and then the glass rolls off the board, out of the living room, down the hall, and just sits there banging up against Veronica's bedroom door over and over and over again. She follows it, she opens the door, and her mattress that she had like upturned before, the sludge stain has spread, and she goes to touch it. And when she touches it, this giant black viny hand rips out of the mattress and grabs a hold of her. And I can't tell if it's trying to use her to come out of the mattress or if it's trying to pull Veronica into the mattress, but there's a struggle, and then Veronica breaks free and she goes running down the hall and tells the kids he's here. All the lights overhead are busting out. She grabs the phone, and this is where we hear the start of the phone call to the police. And the girls are like wrapped around her waist, and Antonito walks over to like the kitchen area, and he's like walking over and she's yelling for him. And the demon grabs Antonito, pulls him in, slams the door to the laundry room. She drops the phone and runs to try and get him. And she's like convinced he's in the bathroom. Well, I was like, How do you know he's in the bathroom? Like that hallway, that there's like the pantry, there's the laundry room, there's the bathroom. How do you know he's in the bathroom? You can't see him, but she knows he's in the bathroom. So she's trying to get into the bathroom. So she eventually breaks the window to the bathroom, climbs in, falls, and hits her head on the tile, and she's out for a good like six seconds. And at that point, all I could think about was like all the serial killers and all the true crime stories that I know that start with head injuries, you know? Like, I don't know.

Matt 2:02:28

You're the one that watches that stuff.

Tasha 2:02:31

They always start with a head injury. So she wakes up and now Antonito is just setting in front of her on the floor, and she picks him up and she runs into the living room, and the girls are hiding. And you're like, Are they hiding from the monster? Are they hiding from Veronica? Or is Veronica the monster? I don't know. And she's screaming for them. She finds Irene and she's like, Where's your sister? And Irene is not answering, she's just staring. And so she slaps her across the face to get an answer from Irene. And uh a lot of people online have said that they have a theory that Veronica is abusive to the kids, and that this fracture of her psyche is really a realization that she has been abusing her siblings, and they use this slap as like the first proof coming through to her that like she's abusive. I don't I don't know that I would agree with that. I would say that like she was panicked and she was trying to get Irene to respond.

Matt 2:03:44

Because they back talk her a lot, so they really do.

Tasha 2:03:47

There are so many times where you can see her being abusive.

Matt 2:03:50

That would not be something you do to the abuser most often.

Tasha 2:03:55

Because they like the the theory is that she was abused and now she abuses, but like I don't see her. There's so many times when she takes care of them. You know what I mean? I don't think it was the right thing to slap her, like maybe just shake her a little. Irene, come to.

Matt 2:04:15

Oh, but she's also whole, yeah. I know. I you know, yeah. But she was in the moment.

Tasha 2:04:20

If you think a demon is on the way, yeah, we gotta go. Right? And someone's just staring. The choking of Lucio, okay, I you know, I could see that, but like I also think at that moment she was in like a psychosis or or possessed. So even now I'm not like I'm not convinced either way, I don't think. Um the scalding hot water, I don't know. I don't know. Because it was off when she left. But is the narrator reliable? So there you go. I think I'm voting psychosis or possession, not abuse, is where I'm at. Because my biggest question is where the hell are all of the marks on her body coming from? And the fact that her mom didn't question them makes me wonder if the marks on her body are coming from her mom.

Matt 2:05:18

I don't I don't know. The thing that I thought of was maybe after her dad died, she went into a phase of she wanted to be seen and she wasn't being seen, and so she could have done stuff to herself to be seen.

Tasha 2:05:36

I don't know. I just think it's so weird that like her mom does not make any mention of them, but Rosa saw them because when her mom didn't see them, I thought maybe they're not there, but Rosa clearly saw them, so it's not that but then is her mom abusing her when would she abuse her? She's never home when she is home. She's passed out of sleep.

Matt 2:06:01

Yeah.

Tasha 2:06:02

So but then there's that one scene where they thought the demon was in the hallway that night, and the demon morphed into their mom. And so then I was like, are we supposed to take that to understand that the whole time this is actually about parental abuse? Again, Paco Plaza. I need to talk. So, okay, so getting back on track. Lucia comes out from behind a chair, right? And Veronica sees the crazy demon alien thing in the corner. Screams. You think the kids saw it too?

Matt 2:06:39

I feel like I don't know. It it was really fast at that moment.

Tasha 2:06:43

Really fast because there was like a shot that you saw. There was lightning and it lit it up.

Matt 2:06:50

Yeah.

Tasha 2:06:50

And so it was just a second. She rushes the kids out of the apartment, and as she does so, and they run past it, the crucifix falls off the wall. The crucifix fell off the wall with Antonito. She's carrying Antonito. So we flashed then to Anna, who's cleaning tables, and the screaming police cars come by. And I don't know, mother's intuition, she sees the police cars and she's like, Oh, shit's going down with my kids. She throws everything down and leaves the drinking football fans in in the place and just runs out into the rain. Um, so then it goes back and we see the kids running down the stairs. Veronica's carrying Antonito. They get to the very front door, and the twins are like, Veronica, where's Antonito? Veronica turns, and there's this huge mirror, and she's holding a big, fat, four-year-old bag of air. Like there's nothing in her arms. You know, just nothing. And so uh she has clearly lost her mind. Uh, she leaves the twins locked outside, which is probably best for them. Uh, I don't know. At this point, like I think it's best for the twins to be alone in the rain in the middle of the night than it is for them to be inside the house. And she runs upstairs looking for Antonito, and this is where we get that shot, the opening shot that I wish we could have seen with the original camera shot, but I'll take it however I can get it. The mom runs past the detective, she goes to the girls. It's raining, it's Sunday, it's June 15th, it's 1:50 a.m. at this point, and Anna's screaming at Irene and Lucia Where's Antonito? Where's Barrow? Where's Barrow? Where's Barrow? Where's Barrow? Now we're inside the apartment, and there's this weird ass painting that has been showing up all throughout the movie, and it's wolves hunting a stag, and it's really been unnerving the whole movie. But now the stag is gone, like the stag is just missing from the painting. It's only wolves that we see. But did we mention that tonight Veronica's wearing a picture or wearing a painting, not wearing a painting or a picture, she's wearing a t-shirt with just a wolf's face on it.

Matt 2:09:27

So that part, she when she goes back into the apartment, the stag is still there. She stops in front of the painting. And when she leaves that painting, the stag is gone. The stag is gone.

Tasha 2:09:39

But now she's wearing a wolf, so like I think now she is one of the wolves. She is a wolf. Veronica is a wolf.

Matt 2:09:48

At that point, I didn't know that she was wearing a wolf.

Tasha 2:09:51

Yeah.

Matt 2:09:52

I don't know how later she was.

Tasha 2:09:54

She so she she runs down the hall, and all of the pictures on the walls fall off. And then she goes in the bathroom, and Aunt Man is sitting in the bathtub, and he gets pulled down and behind a shower curtain by this big shadowy figure, and she runs towards him, but the figure backhands her, and it sends her spinning off, and she flies into the medicine cabinet mirror.

Matt 2:10:31

Yeah.

Tasha 2:10:32

And this is where the mirror totally splinters apart. And finally, we get a physical shattering of the mirror, and Alice is now through the looking glass. And I don't know if you've noticed this, and I have been dying to talk to you about this, and I've been trying so hard not to talk about this, and so I really hope that I haven't said anything. Did you notice that once this happens, the entire apartment is in reverse?

Matt 2:11:11

What do you mean? Like it's mirror damage?

Tasha 2:11:13

Everything is mirrored. Really? Everything, everything. It is incredible. Okay, so she hits the glass.

Matt 2:11:21

I'll have to go back and look at this now.

Tasha 2:11:23

I know. She hits the glass, she comes back up, the blood on her face has changed places. Okay. The part of her hair is on the other side. The bathroom door leading into the room is on the opposite side of the room. She grabs a shard of glass out of the sink. She exits the wrong way out of the room, goes down the hallway into her bedroom. She gets into the bedroom. Her room is completely switched around. The bedroom, her bed is on the wrong side of where it was. Now the wardrobe was. Always straight ahead.

Matt 2:12:01

So it's still there.

Tasha 2:12:03

But all of the pictures are on opposite sides and they are they're backwards. All of the writing on all of her posters, backwards.

Matt 2:12:14

Wow. Everything is reversed. Wow.

Tasha 2:12:17

I love it so much. I have been freaking out waiting to talk to you about this. It's my favorite. Um, so she's got this glass in her hand while she's walking down the hallway. Uh-huh.

Matt 2:12:34

Okay.

Tasha 2:12:34

Yep. So she's walking down the hallway, she's dripping blood the whole way down. And that is the stream of blood that the cop follows down, right? Um, she gets there, she opens up the wardrobe, and Tonito's inside. Our little ants man is he's got his hands over his ears. He's not yelling her name like she said, he's whispering.

Matt 2:12:58

It's his form of yell because he's a very quiet kid.

Tasha 2:13:01

He's a very quiet kid, but he's just going, better, better, better, better, better. And since we've seen this movie, everything sounds like better, better, better, better. And so now it doesn't matter where we are. I'm like, do you hear that? Matthew, do you do you hear that? It's better, better, better, better. But the the Veronica that we see rain dripping from the tree. The Veronica that we see standing in front of the wardrobe mirror is scary, calm, and gripping the shard of mirror like it ain't no thing. But the Veronica in the mirror is shaking and crying and freaking the fuck out.

Matt 2:13:44

But before she looks in the mirror, she's like, You need to come with me.

Tasha 2:13:49

I know.

Matt 2:13:49

Like, no.

Tasha 2:13:50

Yeah, he goes, uh-uh. He's eyes shut, and he's keeps saying it, and then because he knows that is not his barrow. Yeah, that is not barrel. So she then starts thinking back through everything that's happened. She goes all the way back to playing with the Ouija board and the glass moving, and she says out loud, it's me. So here's the question that I think people are answering incorrectly. What is she talking about when she says it's me? What do you think she means by it's me?

Matt 2:14:31

I don't know.

Tasha 2:14:33

Come on, you've got an idea.

Matt 2:14:37

I just think that she well, I just think that she's the one that's causing the issues. So the one that's like you know, choking Lucia or whoever. I don't I forget names. Uh she's the one that's you know causing everything to happen. I mean, I don't know how she's making that do, but the only thing I can think of is like split personality or something like that. Um whatever you'd call it medically, but that's what I think that she meant she said is that this is all me.

Tasha 2:15:10

So I think she's saying I think after thinking through everything, I think she's realizing that she's the door. Oh, yeah. I think according to Sister Death, the door must be destroyed. There's this flashback, and it makes it look like she's the one doing everything. And so you could watch that and say it's her revelation that she's been doing all the bad shit the whole time. But I think what she's actually realizing here is that the demon has been doing it through her the whole time. Yeah. Because she's the doorway, she's the door. He's been using her body, so she has to properly close the door so that he can't finish coming through. I think a lot of people are gonna disagree with me and say she's having a moment of clarity where she realizes she's having a mental split and she decides to end it so that she doesn't hurt anybody else. But I think this moment says, no, there was some real supernatural shit going on, but it was using Veronica's body to do it.

Matt 2:16:19

She's the conduit, yeah.

Tasha 2:16:21

So she takes this mirror shard and she tries to cut her own throat to save Antonito. And she's like, she's ready. She's looking at the mirror, yes, at herself, yes, but the demon bends her over backwards, and ooh, you just kicked my camera real hard. So anybody watching at home just went for a ride.

Matt 2:16:50

Um not being a lot of time.

Tasha 2:16:54

Um, so she the demon bends her over backwards, and he shoves his long ass arm down her throat, at which point the cops come in, and it's really fast because the camera changes back to regular. The camera looks at the camera.

Matt 2:17:15

The thing that I like noticed was something doesn't seem right, but I did not think about the whole reversal of it.

Tasha 2:17:20

She's if you look, we're looking at her and her body's in one direction. The camera cuts the cops when it looks back at her. She's the other, she's the other direction. Yeah. And everything is back to normal because we are looking through the cops' point of view. We're at that vantage point. The cops don't see the demon, they don't see the arm going down her throat, they just see this girl bent over backwards.

Matt 2:17:48

Unnaturally.

Tasha 2:17:49

Unnaturally, so unnaturally. Um, but her mouth wide open, her mouth is in that screaming shape that's way too uncomfortable to see because she is the sacrifice of this eclipse. And the detective and the cops behind him are about to wet their pants, and then she falls to the ground. And sweet little ant man is still in the wardrobe, and he's like, But if you look at him, he's sitting on the opposite side of the wardrobe of where he was when she was looking at him. Oh, really? Yep. And he's still saying, Pharaoh, Pharaoh, Pharaoh, Pharaoh, Pharaoh. And the police officer goes over and takes him out, and he's like, Where's Pharaoh? And your heart breaks into a million pieces because you know where Varo is. And so they call for medics, and then you see her getting taken out on a stretcher, and Anna is dumbfounded because absent parents usually are. And in the house, the detective picks up a photograph of Veronica and it burns his hand, and he drops it, and the photo of Veronica starts to burn out her face underneath the glass. The lights come back on in the house, and over the radio, they tell him that the girl has just died, and the flame in the photo flickers out. And we get a timestamp. It's Sunday, June 15th, it's 2 a.m. And the screen fades out. And then it comes back up. The detective lights a cigarette, he's setting at a typewriter in the police station, and he begins his report. And on screen it reads June 15, 1991, Detective Jose Ramon Ramiro went to the home on 8 Gerardo Nunes Street in response to an emergency call. In their statement, family declared that after a seance with a Ouija board, the girl had several strange symptoms and paranormal events took place in the home. Two of the inspecting agents suddenly suddenly had to leave the building due to nausea, dizziness, and shaking. They remained two weeks off the force. One month after the events, Romero requested a transfer. In the inspector's report, Romero speaks of phenomena that is literally inexplicable. The first police report in Spain, where an officer certifies having witnessed paranormal activity. And then this is followed by a series of official-looking crime scene photos that are definitely not real crime scene photos from the Gutierrez Lazaro home, but added to the based on a true story feel of it all. So, Veronica the movie, the best. Love this movie. It is doing so much, doing it so well. Veronica, the story of Estefania, absolute garbage. Uh and we will break all of that down for you in the next episode of Real Twisty.