The Veil (2023) horror movie review

Cameron Beyl’s eerie, atmospheric The Veil blends classic sci-fi, speculative fiction, and traditional American ghost stories to tell a poetic, haunting story of abuse, guilt, and regret.

Ghost stories are especially adept at expressing emotions that extend across time – longing, desire, guilt, fear, remorse. It’s like Steven Crain says in Mike Flanegan’s version of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House: “Ghosts are guilt, ghosts are secrets, ghosts are regrets and failings. But most times most times a ghost is a wish.” In their most literal sense, ghosts are the corporeal presence of the past, some longing expressed in the present, some wrong we wish we could right.

Douglas (Sean O’Bryan) has long been haunted by a decision he made as a young man – or neglected to make, in this instance. The Veil begins with Douglas as a young man (Will Tranfro) driving through an evergreen forest in Pennsylvania when an eerie green phosphorescence lights with its sickly fire. As he approaches an old-fashion wooden bridge, a young woman – dressed in what appears to be Amish garb – materializes out of the darkness, screaming for help. As she scrabbles at the door of his station wagon, Douglas panics, driving off into the unearthly night.

Flash forward many years. Douglas is now nearing the end of his time in the priesthood, due to failing health. As he drives home to his lonely home in the Pennsylvania countryside, that same unearthly glow from so many years ago lights up the night sky. As he returns home, finding the power out, a frenzied knocking breaks the stillness. Douglas discovers Hannah (Rebekah Kennedy), hurt and panicked. He bids her to enter, playing the concerned, benevolent patriarch as he cleans and dresses her wounds while discreetly trying to figure out what’s going on with this young woman.

It doesn’t take long to figure out there’s something wrong with both Hannah and this situation. In short order, Douglas realizes this is the same woman from the wooden bridge from half a century ago. Convinced he’s been given a second chance by God to erase his shame and guilt that’s plagued him his entire lifetime. Understandably alarmed, Hannah tries desperately to escape, dashing off into the sickly green night while Douglas gives chase in furious desperation. Hannah finds salvation in the nick of time, with a mind-bending twist, making The Veil a surreal, fantastic magic realism.

The Veil brings to mind everything from classic Twilight Zone to David Lynch’s Lost Highway and will appeal to fans of both. It’s a triumph of budget film-making, thanks in large part to luminous performances from O’Bryan and Kennedy. Those who need their storylines tied up with a nice linear bow will likely find The Veil frustrating, but those willing to accept its dream logic will find it an exceptionally poignant parable for these feminist times.

The Veil made its world premier at this year’s H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland, Or. It screens again later this month at the Austin Film Festival on October 27. 2023 and October 30. 2023 and then again in Mobile, Alabama on November 3 – 5, 2023.