The Veil (2016)

Nothing like an interesting story made uninteresting. Sarah Hope (Lily Rabe) as a child was the sole survivor of a cult suicide from 3/23/1985. Now as an adult she is returning to the secluded ranch (no bars, can't run to get help) with a camera crew who happen to be the larvae of the FBI men who raided the compound. Not to give away too much, but they locate some old film canisters (and 1 VHS) about the cult engaged in soul transmigration.The individual scenes were done okay, but when placed together it somehow didn't make for a great film. Raspberry Award winner Jessica Alba will be looking to add to that list as Maggie who played a deer in the headlights for most of the feature. Hey! Let's capture that look and put it on the DVD cover! The male lead needed someone other than Thomas Jane whose charisma seemed forced upon us. Brad Pitt would have been too expensive, but Billy Drago, or heck even Billy Zane.Guide: F-bomb. No sex or nudity.

Overall was a very strong recent horror film, especially when compared to recent "failures" such as; Unfriended, Occulus, Ouijia, and Devil's Due (plus plenty more).This movie isn't perfect by any means, but for the standards of horror and being an enjoyable movie, yes it was very good. Some of the events where a little too predictable, but I didn't find those parts too ruining for the overall film. The supernatural aspect was definitely interesting in this one, especially when pairing it with a suicide cult (oh and no it's not ripping off the suicide cult from V/H/S 2 BTW, it's very different from that one so have no fear in thinking that this film might be ripping off other horror films. Trust me, it's not.).Is it scary? Kind of. Probably not nightmare inducing for me, but I think the scariest aspect is revolving around the cult and how the followers blindly follow the leader much like cults in real life. Is it re watchable? I would say so in all honesty. Is it amazing? Ehhh, not amazing but very good and deserves the rating of 7/10 from me. Does it end well? Yes and no. Some of the actions of a certain character irked me towards the end and I found myself very disappointing in this character. However I will say the ending wasn't bad really by any means, especially when playing off a certain part of the beginning of the film. Also another good part of the closing of this film is the very last line said. For some reason the very subtle, nonchalant line at the very end really got to me, and I am sure once you watch it you'll understand why.

I was a little surprised to see another movie based on the Jim Jones massacre after watching The Sacrament recently. This movie takes a strangely supernatural approach to the subject matter, which could be a decent idea. However, the movie gradually falls apart the longer it goes on.The first misstep is the photography. I've seen this trend toward using washed out colors in horror movies, and every time I see it, I hate it a little more. I want to see what happens. I don't want to spend my time trying to figure out what I'm looking at. The approach comes across like a muddy black-and-white picture with very low contrast. Mix this with mostly dark interiors and exteriors, a bit of shaky-cam, and I have no clue why I'm still watching.Then the story gets going. A documentary crew arrives at the compound where a cult committed mass suicide during the 80s. The crew has a guest - the one survivor of that mass suicide, who doesn't remember anything. Until, of course, she does.A bunch of stuff happens, involving people moving around inside and outside a house. Ghosts are involved, and some sort of possession. All of this is a dull slog, since it's hard to care about it if you can't understand what you're watching. Mostly interchangeable characters also make this hard to follow.The one saving grace that the movie has is the flashback scenes, which we get to watch in the form of videos that the crew watches. There are a few questions I have about this. Why are they using a projector when there are VHS tapes? When we go into watching one of these movies, how are these nicely edited with multiple camera angles? This is supposed to be a found-footage portion of the story, but it's actually better than the rest of the movie. At least, it seems that way because it's got better lighting than the rest of it.The twist to the story is that the cult was actually right. They had found some path to immortality of the soul (or something like that). They were in the process of going through the last step when the police arrived and interrupted it, ensuring that everyone would die.Why did the police arrive then?The logistical and plot problems of the story aren't the biggest offense. What bothered me the most was how the story effectively tries to give credibility to Jim Jones. It sucks all of the horror out of these charismatic leaders that persuade (and force) people to do their bidding, and exchanges that for a cartoonish ghost villain.In summary, this movie took a premise that was legitimately scary, then tried to justify the real horrors, then turned the source of that horror into a misunderstood ghost.Nothing scary in it. Mostly boring, but also sort of puzzling. I have the feeling that the twist was so central in the writer's mind that he never considered if it was a good idea or not.

I saw it before means it is a dumb movie? I rather see horror movie than anything else. Dummies. All these people that I saw it before and now it sucks crap is so stupid. I rather see this movie than some stupid found footage any day or even the stupid build up that fail more than this movie ever did.For the review that said we have a problem for liking this movie if we are a fan of horror is stupid. The ones that don't like real horror movies like this are the ones that like the not scary horror movies like PG-13 and get scared from something that isn't scary at all.This is more entertaining than and build up horror movie or PG-13 so called horror movie. Jump scares are just that. Nothing scary about that and music or noise is just that. Not scary. This had some of that but you leave the stuff out like in real horror movies and make PG- 13, then it is not really a horror movie.They are not scary. No matter what any true horror fan, if you are would not like PG-13 or PG claimed to be horror movies. Really, tired of the good horror movies put down while the trashy PG-13 or PG ones are being made and released.I been a horror movie watcher since I was 11 years old and for the last decade and half, there has been way more PG-13 releases ever and they all suck.This movie is awesome but the end kind of sucked but this is better than any PG-13 horror movie release ever.