This was a more modern Mexican film than the previous ones shown at the Mexican Embassy in Guyana. The Ambassador explained that this film was released about the same time they started the Film Institute to celebrate Mexico’s film industry making this year its 40th anniversary.
The film started with one isolated, orphaned child, Verónica, being assigned to help a late comer, Flavia, who was also an only child and a bit of a loner. Veronica’s imagination is encouraged by the tales of witches by her nanny but she is also fairly strong willed and manipulative and gradually starts to dominate and bully Flavia who becomes scared to resist her.
Veronica makes Flavia get her invited to Flavia’s family’s ranch for the holidays and the girls spend a lot of time collecting witchy ingredients to make a potion to kill the fairies as they have the power to kill witches. The idea being to sprinkle the potion on any places where the fairies might hang out. Of course the girls break the parents’ rules but the film concentrates mainly on the girls’ activities and the mainly faceless adults seem oblivious to gradual domination and change of character of Flavia. The final straw for Flavia is the demand for her beloved pet - a small black dog, who Verónica thinks would be a good substitute for the traditional witches’ black cat to help with the spell. There was an unexpected twist at the end. The Ambassador revealed at the end that the actress playing Verónica went on the be one of the famous telenovela actresses in Mexico who specialised in playing villainesses!
