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Poison for the Fairies, 1986
Flavia (Elsa Maria Gutierrez) is an only child of an upper class family. At school, she befriends Veronica (Ana Patricia Rojo), who is obsessed with witches and convinces Flavia that she has witchy powers. While the girls start out more like co-conspirators, Veronica soon uses Flavia’s anxiety and guilt as leverage to force her friend into increasingly dire situations.
Mining tension from childhood fears and poisonous friendship dynamics, this is a fantastic intersection of horror and drama.
I have this vague memory of being about the age of the girls in this movie, maybe a little younger, and having seen maybe a few too many sci-fi/fantasy movies and shows, deciding to pretend that I was getting secret messages. Yes, cringe. But at the time, it seemed like something mysterious and interesting.
Something that is very effective about this movie is the extent to which it keeps Veronica in the realm of a kid who clearly has some problems, but isn’t out-and-out evil. She’s not a pleasant person, by any means, and she definitely manipulates Flavia in very cruel ways. As we watch these manipulations escalate, we’re waiting for the moment that Flavia will snap. Something’s got to give. And yet Veronica’s motivations are incredibly human. She becomes intoxicated with power, and she’s clearly jealous of Flavia. Flavia, for her part, is oblivious to her privileges in a way that only wealthy people can be. She drops off-hand mentions about the big farm that her family owns. As they pull up, she’s just like “Oh, yeah, we own all of this.” Flavia is a nice girl, but you can understand why Veronica would have the desire to pull rank.
The heart of the movie is Flavia’s disintegrating mental state, and the way that the film portrays her isolation is really excellent. Adding to the film’s fairy tale energy, the adults in the film are only seen from the neck down. This already gives a sense of Flavia and Veronica being afloat in their own sea. As Veronica puts more ideas into Flavia’s head, Flavia’s imagination takes over and she becomes consumed by fear. Veronica manages to convince Flavia that a bad thing that happened to another character was Flavia’s fault, and so Flavia is too terrified to talk to her parents about what is happening.
Where the movie goes in its finale is terrifying and tragic. It is both unexpected and inevitable, and the lingering implications are haunting.
The understanding of how children create their own world and their own rules is very strong. It also does a great job of showing how simple events, such as Flavia accidentally running into Veronica’s elderly grandmother, can be misunderstood and blown up into something frightening. Flavia and Veronica are both well-realized characters. As awful as Veronica is, I understood her motivations and even felt a bit sad for her because she doesn’t know how to have a friendship that isn’t underpinned by power struggle and dominance.
Really fabulous.
Poison for the Fairies, 1986
Flavia (Elsa Maria Gutierrez) is an only child of an upper class family. At school, she befriends Veronica (Ana Patricia Rojo), who is obsessed with witches and convinces Flavia that she has witchy powers. While the girls start out more like co-conspirators, Veronica soon uses Flavia’s anxiety and guilt as leverage to force her friend into increasingly dire situations.
Mining tension from childhood fears and poisonous friendship dynamics, this is a fantastic intersection of horror and drama.
I have this vague memory of being about the age of the girls in this movie, maybe a little younger, and having seen maybe a few too many sci-fi/fantasy movies and shows, deciding to pretend that I was getting secret messages. Yes, cringe. But at the time, it seemed like something mysterious and interesting.
Something that is very effective about this movie is the extent to which it keeps Veronica in the realm of a kid who clearly has some problems, but isn’t out-and-out evil. She’s not a pleasant person, by any means, and she definitely manipulates Flavia in very cruel ways. As we watch these manipulations escalate, we’re waiting for the moment that Flavia will snap. Something’s got to give. And yet Veronica’s motivations are incredibly human. She becomes intoxicated with power, and she’s clearly jealous of Flavia. Flavia, for her part, is oblivious to her privileges in a way that only wealthy people can be. She drops off-hand mentions about the big farm that her family owns. As they pull up, she’s just like “Oh, yeah, we own all of this.” Flavia is a nice girl, but you can understand why Veronica would have the desire to pull rank.
The heart of the movie is Flavia’s disintegrating mental state, and the way that the film portrays her isolation is really excellent. Adding to the film’s fairy tale energy, the adults in the film are only seen from the neck down. This already gives a sense of Flavia and Veronica being afloat in their own sea. As Veronica puts more ideas into Flavia’s head, Flavia’s imagination takes over and she becomes consumed by fear. Veronica manages to convince Flavia that a bad thing that happened to another character was Flavia’s fault, and so Flavia is too terrified to talk to her parents about what is happening.
Where the movie goes in its finale is terrifying and tragic. It is both unexpected and inevitable, and the lingering implications are haunting.
The understanding of how children create their own world and their own rules is very strong. It also does a great job of showing how simple events, such as Flavia accidentally running into Veronica’s elderly grandmother, can be misunderstood and blown up into something frightening. Flavia and Veronica are both well-realized characters. As awful as Veronica is, I understood her motivations and even felt a bit sad for her because she doesn’t know how to have a friendship that isn’t underpinned by power struggle and dominance.
Really fabulous.