User reviews

In most respects The Veil is a very ordinary film. It takes a well trodden path that mixes the notion of re-incantation with an invasion of the body snatchers/possession twist.

Most of the performances in this flick are pretty forgettable. Jessica Alba's character, who is supposedly the lead, spends most of her time looking like she's about to have a painful visit to the dentist. She's perpetually afraid, from the opening scenes to closing credits, with little in the way of emotional range, in between.

What holds this film together and really defines it is the show stealing performance by Thomas Jane. Janes character, cult leader, Jim Jacobs, is a pretty transparent Jim Jones, Peoples Temple, knock off. But what a knock off! Jane is absurdly good and utterly convincing as Jacobs. So much so, I kept watching what is otherwise a rather mediocre film.

Its a shame we don't see more of Jane in leading roles, he clearly has a lot to offer. I think for one thing he'd make an outstanding Jim Jones, should anyone decide to revisit that sad story. As to The Veil, I'd say watch it for Jane's remarkable performance but beyond that, don't come to this flick with big expectations or you will be disappointed. Five out of ten from me.

A lot of people think this is basedon the Jim Jones famous cult massacre but its actually based on the Hale Bop comet cult and its actually a true cult who poisoned each other with an apple pie special over 3 days as they believed aliens were coming to transport them to another world - how some people can fall for these cults is beyond me but it makes for fascinating viewing.

Thomas Jane was utterly superb and worth renting just to watch his scenes and reminds me of David Koresh another cult nutjob. Jessica Alba was just a bit of fluff on a stick and could have been substituted with any actress! I quite like cult type movies and there haven't been many lately!

It is a bit slow but there are some real jump scares - I messed ma pontaloons on at least 3 occasions so its not without its scares.

Overall though its pretty standard fair but worth a watch if you are a horror fan!

The premise of cult suicide eerily resembles real life tragedy, perhaps it is such intended effect. A cult leader Jim Jacobs (Thomas Jane) allegedly leads his congregation to their deaths in a promise of unworldly reward. In a pleasant surprise Thomas Jane is bizarrely fitting cast for the charismatic leader. He's been delivering good characters in last few years and he seems to get better each time.

After the events of mass suicide, a sole survivor is found, Sarah Hope (Lily Rabe). It takes her 25 years but she eventually returns to the site with a film crew. The Veil already produces anticipation more than the usual documentary crew fumbling into uncharted territory.

Its premise and ambiance are presentable, often using grey tone and cryptic air to its advantage. Although it uses found footage element, it doesn't force the gimmick for the entirety of the movie, thus it could show the past and present sequences freely.

Most of the horrors are based on foundation of Jim Jacobs' cult, which effectively produces a creepy setting. Furthermore, Thomas Jane as the prophet role has a way to allure interest as well as secretively shows some hints of violence. He's magnetic but still a shady person. The dark forest gives a proper visual for the ordeal, maintaining the sense of isolation well.

Unfortunately, few of the potentials for the scare end up in predictable fashion or blunt jump scares. Aside from Sarah Hope and the lead director Maggie (Jessica Alba), the rest of cast are not fully fleshed out. Still, the mystery effect and the appropriately crafted presentation manage to construct overall frightening atmosphere.

The Veil rallies and promises a great horror from its harrowing cultist vibe. It stutters a bit towards the end, contrasting the good basis it has set, yet the narrative and atmosphere still create gratifyingly creepy experience.

First of all i went in not knowing anything about this film it just caught my eye especially w the actors in it.. I believe this movie took certain big elements based on the actual Jonestown but completely made it their own and portrayed it with its own twist, theories and ghost stories. It did have it's spooky moments and it did its part in keeping you interested from beginning to end but I felt it could've been a little better in which I feel it was a little cheesy at certain parts and had a few plot holes.. I've seen worse and scarier movies but it's a nice quick watch if you're looking for something not too intricate or too scary with supernatural elements.. I feel like the ending could've been better but then again you can't expect too much with these type of movies so I guess it did fit for with the theme they were going for.. I did like the way they didn't do a footage style movie since they were filming a documentary based on this cult, also I liked how they portrayed two different angles such as flashbacks and present day it helped explain everything and give you a better visual on what happened, how it happened and why..aside from that give it a shot like I said if you take it for what it is it'll be a decent watch!

In a way it was disappointing, but in another, it's what it claimed to be. A Jim Jones-type of guy (Thomas Jane) commits suicide with is cult, and several years later, the lone survivor -- Sara -- returns to the scene with a film crew headed by Jessica Alba. I won't give away any spoilers, but it was not good in my opinion. The acting was fine, but the story line was wanting. It was very slow to the point that it dragged in many places. I started it around 9:30 in the morning, and I was falling asleep half-way through. Much of the coloring looked like a transition between black-and-white and color, giving it a somewhat grayish look. Maybe I just saw a bad copy. It's not a found-footage film. I do not recommend.

...But, when all was said and done, I just couldn't. Could it have been better? Yes. Was it as bad as others here have written? No. I think the reason people here have given it a bad review, is that it IS lacking in some respects, however, it's an interesting story, original in it's execution. It's filmed beautifully, for a horror film. My kudos to the Cinematographer, it looks amazing.

I think most people now a days want their ghost stories to have more 'jump scares' and less 'story' and THAT'S why it's getting bad reviews. If they were more familiar with Rod Serling, or had seen some of the Hammer Film movies, they'd appreciate this one more.

This movie takes the typical 'abandoned cabin in the woods' story to an entirely different area, tying into 'true events' and putting a solid twist ending to good use.

I rated it a 7-10 because I think what this movie really needed was MORE Thomas Jane, and maybe some John Carpenter-esque sound tracks, but over all I enjoyed this movie more than I expected it to.

A grim answer to the question "What the heck happened to Jessica Alba?", The Veil starts with a blasphemous mass and ends with a crucifixion. Heavily relying on the Jim Jones' mass suicide with just a dash of the Manson family, it mixes classic cinematography with post-modern seasoning, found footage (please Lord, make it STOP!) and an unreliable narrator. Mix the whole in a Cabin in the Woods environment (after carefully expunging all said movie's cleverness and voilà, here's your bad movie of the week. You watch what is filmed of the characters; you watch what the characters film; you also watch a lot of the characters watching the movie they found. Call it meta if you wish. One calls it crap.

Sarah Hope, natch (Lili Rabe, of American Horror Story's fame, here given absolutely nothing to do) is the sole survivor of Heaven's Veil, a cult led by Jim Jacobs (Tomas Jane, hamming it up as if the world was really about to end). Maggie Price, natch (Jessica Alba) wants to shoot a documentary on the massacre, because her father, an FBI agent, committed suicide after such an horror happened on his watch. She has a crew, which bears no importance whatsoever since they will all die anyway. OK. Let's share a moment of non-nonsense approach now, shall we?

So: jump scares (at least 6), rocking chair, moth, whispering ghosts, scary doll, spiritualism seance, demonic mumbo-jumbo, torch lights running out of battery, no cellphone coverage. All checked. Everything that could possibly go wrong does so from the start, but the characters are real troopers, so they carry on. Also, they are dumb as dumb can be. Wait a minute, no cymbal-crashing monkey?

For some reason, there is ONE videotape, labeled "Experiment 23", and it's shitty as hell, but all the rest is shot in glorious Super 8 Cinemascope, immaculately edited, of course. What Experiment 23 shows makes no sense whatsoever to what will follow, but they all get hooked on it like a 20$ hooker on her first crack pipe. "We need to watch the rest of these films", someone says. NOOOOOO! RUUUUUUN!

Not to spoil much, but Jim Jacobs aims at retrieving the three nails of the Cross to acquire eternal life, a project absolutely as legit as ruling the world via the creation of a social network or creating new California property development land through an earthquake. Jesus was nailed to the Cross, so the spirit is nailed to the body, you know. Of course you do.

Embarrassed by so many references it would be pedantic and tedious to list them, movie pedestrianly proceeds to its bitter end. FBI has ESP. Sarah is not what she seems to be. Jessica Alba gets immortal the hard way. Now let's all have a quizz: why is that thing called The Veil? Oh, rutabaga.

Not only that this was actually pretty decent, but also looking at the rating of this. While other (mediocre) efforts in the horror genre have been lauded and got better reviews, this actually builds suspense and can sustain it, but does not to hit the spot with at least a lot of people here on IMDb.

The story is out there, even if it is based on something real and something horrible (cult, mass murder/suicide), which might be something some people may have an issue with. If you can detach this from reality (it's a movie after all and if any of it were true it would be more than frightening of course), you can have fun and be scared - all the things this movie promises as entertainment

It seems some people get offended when non-movie experts review a movie. Well I might not be a "movie-expert", a director or whatever, but I sure know what works for me or not. A review is ALWAYS personal and there's no genre in movies more personal than Terror/horror movies - what works for me might work for a few and not work at all for many.

That being said, movie starts well, good balance between "lost-footage" (that i hate BTW) camera-type and "normal" camera view. Eerie music and atmosphere, movie is good until about an half, then it starts going down and down the drain, with a very predictable story and ending.

Thomas Jane as a serious case of over-acting here and just gets worst and worst towards the end. Jessica Alba is almost a secondary role. Movie turns into a possession average flick, with a twist in the end that every one is expecting already.

End-shot before the end sums it all perfectly. A movie full of holes that lacks charisma, suspense and surprises.

Nothing new here, the same old "get in a shack, kill'em all" style of movie that's been tirelessly done for some decades now.

I am the biggest critic of horror films. If there's just one thing that doesn't seem right, I automatically dislike a film. I really liked this, though.

It has a unique story, one that hasn't been touched upon very often: scary cults. It has a good cast who all work well together. There's not too much crappy dialogue, like the ubiquitous "Die you f-ing b****!" that is found in a lot of movies. (I've never understood how someone, who is fighting for their life, could be thinking of screaming cuss words at an attacker, and I curse like a truck driver.) I'm not a huge fan of Jessica Alba but this role worked for her.

The scares were a success. I jumped a couple of times.

Overall I think it's a very good scary movie. Is it Oscar-worthy? No, but that's not why I watched it.

In the mid-1980s, a cult residing at the woodsy domain of Heaven's Veil committed mass suicide, at the instigation of their leader, Jim Jacobs (an eerily convincing Thomas Jane). 25 years later, a documentary film crew led by Maggie Price (Jessica Alba) returns to the scene of the crime, accompanied by Sarah Hope (Lily Rabe), the sole survivor of that massacre who was only five years old at the time. Naturally, horror and death are soon to follow; Maggie and company are cliched horror movie characters who are much too stupid to get out while the getting is good.

Although directed by a capable, experienced filmmaker, Phil Joanou ("Three O'Clock High", "State of Grace"), much of what goes on here is pretty uninspired. "The Veil" takes us on a gloomy, atmospheric, but predictable journey. The film eventually turns into "found footage" material, and said footage is certainly better than the present-day narrative. Unfortunately, so many of the characters are utterly bland and forgettable, including Maggie; they lack any interesting or entertaining attributes. Joanou tries to make this visually enticing, with decent widescreen photography and a desaturated colour scheme. But the only thing really worth watching in this routine shocker is Janes' performance. Here, he has one of his better roles and gives one of his best performances. Jim Jacobs is as scary a cult leader as you'll ever see in this type of yarn.

"The Veil" is moderately watchable, but its story & characters, for the most part, failed to really engage this viewer.

Five out of 10.

"The Veil" is a Horror movie in which we watch a documentary crew going to a house where 25 years before members of a religious cult committed a mass suicide.From this suicide only one person saved and this lone survivor accepted to be a part of this crew.

This movie is the definition of one woman's movie. The plot is not something special and the direction which made by Phil Joanou is also not something that worth to be mentioned. Because of the low budget of this movie the result is a medium type of movie. With only one famous actor playing, Jessica Alba they tried to convince people of watching it. The interpretation of Jessica Alba who played as Maggie Price was not so good and of course was not something that I expected.

Finally I have to say that "The Veil" is a poor movie and is not worth watching it because there plenty of other better horror movies to watch if you want. Now if you are a fan of Jessica Alba and you want to watch this movie just be prepared for the worst because you are going to be let down for sure.

First, before I get into the movie, can I please just say that if you only watch the first 15 minutes of a film and then turn it off (as one reviewer said they did), please don't write a review of it. Clearly, you can't give an informed opinion if you only watch a fraction of the film.

OK, The Veil is not a big budget, blood and gore, jump scare heavy sort of movie, so if that's what you're looking for then this one is probably not for you. This one is more of a tense, unnerving film with an indie feel to it that works for the story and lends it realism. Its dark atmosphere is unsettling and lasts from start to finish. Thomas Jane is perfect in his role, which is unlike any other I've seen him in. This one just worked on many levels. It has its flaws, but all in all, I found it entertaining and worth watching.

I can see where they were trying to go with this movie and where they fell short. At first, I loved the concept and basic direction. But then the movie's plot holes and overall less than stellar writing make its appearance. At times I was almost offended how the director apparently assumed that the audience is stupid.

On the opposite side of that coin, the movie has an all-star cast of great supporting characters. Lily Rabe basically just brings her AHS character over but it fits well. Meegan Warner is just as believable and talented as she is in Turn. Shannon Woodward really steals almost every scene she is in. Alba is serviceable in the movie while Jane is guilty of overacting at times.

Overall its not the worst horror ever but with the cast, it falls way short of its potential. It fell into the same trap many horror movies do, relying on jump scares to overshadow bad writing.

Anyone who appreciates real horror/suspense will not like this film. So predictable, so unoriginal. I gave it a 3/10 and that was being generous. Makes little to no sense whatsoever. Honestly, it wasn't even entertaining in a "it's so bad it's good" kind of way. Just straight bad. Predictable from the 1st 20 minutes. In no way surprising, exciting, original, suspenseful, nothing. It had a lot of potential, and I thought the story line sounded really interesting. Unfortunately, it fell very short of its potential. It felt like it took a variety of concepts from other, better horror movies and tried to mix them together in an unsuccessful attempt.

Firstly, I agree with another reviewer, please try to not critically analyse a horror movie too much or there will never be a rating over 4.

Secondly, This is a very sound film, nervy, tense, suspenseful, with a good cast, script and production. It kept me relatively on the edge of my seat throughout the film. Yes it may have been a little predictable, but aren't most films these days. As it happens i really enjoyed this horror movie, Jessica Alba is obviously the stand out, but pretty much the whole cast puts in a decent effort.

The movie plays like it is based on a true story, i don't know whether or not this is the case, but the fact it plays like this adds to the scare factor. Usually the more fact based a horror is the more it can creep you out.

Anyway, its a good film, don't be put off by the naysayers and give it a shot. I gave it an inflated 8, as its in a genre where there is so few half decent films about.

Finally! I saw something better! It's been a while, well, with the exception of Sweet Home, good productions are rare these days.

Let me start by saying I am a huge Thomas Jane fan, so of course I may get a little subjective here, but beside his great acting skills and the rest of the crew involved, The Veil does deliver. A nice plot, used so many times, way better job this time, some good jump scares, intrigue and a good ending. I would almost grade it a 7, but I'm going to give it 6 stars, cause it got predictable real fast. My only complaint about the movie.

The Veil is a nice surprise, a great start this year for horror fans, so far at least, lets keep our fingers crossed and see what else is out there!

Cheers!

Jessica Alba, Lily Rabe (from the American Horror Story) and Thomas Jane (from The Mist fame) star in this low-budget horror film and I admit, the star cast itself made me want to see the movie. Its on Netflix and its fairly a recent release, so I was like why not. The movie has some surprises which I didn't anticipate, so I am making sure this review does not have spoilers.

First reviewed on broth of blogs

It connects to a true story about Jim Jones, played by Thomas Jane and how he ordered mass suicides, which resulted in the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a deliberate act until the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Plot and Script

25 years after a cult commits what looks like a mass-suicide, the lone survivor Sarah Hope (Rabe) decides to go back to the house where it all happened. Only this time, she has Alba and her crew to film her reactions. Alba has another motive – she is the daughter of the FBI agent who raided the place and her father committed suicide just days after the raid. Alba feels connected to Rabe because the same incident destroyed both their families. Upon arriving at the crime scene, weird things start happening and they discover tapes that the leader of the cult, Jane had recorded. They find out the main purpose of the cult was not just to follow their leader, but more sinister.

Without going into details, the plot has major holes. There is no explanation about how the crew who is watching the tape is able to see the incidents like they were actually there – and so you as the audience, is even more confused. The first 30 minutes is really interesting but then it starts tumbling down without logic.

Characterization and Acting (C&A)

Thomas Jane gives a great performance as the leader of the cult and you can see why people would follow him. Its amazing how some of these guys can brainwash an entire sect but that's the power that ordinary people give these guys.

Alba and Rabe were just OK, no great shakes. The others didn't have much of a part to play.

The thing that annoyed me most was that when weird things start happening, they would be like, ya okay, this is nothing. Wouldn't you be on the edge? Wouldn't you not volunteer to go alone into a house where you heard whispers?

Well, our characters did all those stupid things and more.

Sounds and Effects (S&E)

Another thing I hate about horror movies nowadays are the nonsensical jump scenes. Just putting a loud noise with a sudden break in the visual is not called a jump scare people, its just noise. I think some of the more nuanced filmmakers understand that – like James Wan. When you see his movies, you will realize that he uses sounds to build up the tension, not just use a loud sound to make you jump.

Cinematography and Visuals (C&V)

A large part of the movie is in the dark, so it is a little difficult to see but the I like the look of the film. It is deliberately washed out to convey the tragedy. The old films of the cult also show the 70s/80s where everything was so sepia and hippie.

Direction and Overall (D &O)

I wish the movie didn't take a super-natural turn. The first half hour had so much promise. And I wish the story explained more of what was happening – the reactions to some of the incidents in the house were just idiotic and unexplained.

So here are my scores:

Plot and Script (P&S)- 0.5

Characterization and Acting (C&A) – 1

Sounds and Effects (S&E) – 1

Cinematography and Visuals (C&V) – 1.5

Direction and Overall (D &O) – 1

Overall Score – 5 out of 10

Watch it if you are really really bored and you have tonnes of time, its on Netflix. First reviewed on broth of blogs on wordpress

This story is actually quite suspenseful. It keeps me interested throughout the film. I enjoyed it.