Veneno para las hadas (1986) was directed by acclaimed Mexican horror filmmaker Carlos Enrique Taboada. The film follows Flavia (Elsa María Gutiérrez) who arrives at a new school and befriends Veronica (Ana Patricia Rojo), an aspiring witch. What starts as fun and games gradually escalates to cruel manipulation as Veronica abuses her friendship with Flavia.
Taboada roots his film in the child’s perspective of Veronica and Flavia by obscuring the faces of adults. In Veneno para las hadas adults exist not as characters but as authority figures or bastions of information. They are interchangeable disciplinarians who exist to undermine Veronica’s sadistic hold over Flavia. Their presence is oppressive to Veronica.
The film is far more concerned with the imagined reality and morbid preocuptations that the two girls share when they are away from school and adults. The play of the two girls takes on the ritualistic qualities of the witchcraft in folk tales. These scenes take on the moodiness of Gothic horror, escalating in that aesthetic as the film progresses. This milieu reaches its zenith in the climactic blaze as Flavia burns Veronica alive.
Veneno para las hadas is an allegory for the often tumultuous friendships between children; heightening the discord via genre tropes. The horror in Veneno para las hadas is not that of witches but of a toxic relationship run amok. Veronica preys on Flavia’s guilt, exploiting her to get what she wants until she goes too far by demanding that Flavia give her her dog Hippie.
Veneno para las hadas belongs in the same sub genre of horror as The Craft (1996) and Mais ne nous délivrez pas du mal (1971). All of these films use the horror genre as a way of deconstructing and interrogating relationships between young women. It’s also worth noting that each of these films ends with a terrible fire that results in the death of the dominant female force in the friendship.
