Rotten Tomatoes Rating: NA (Critics) / 93% (Audience)
Directed By: Phil Joanou
Written By: Robert Ben Garant
Starring: Jessica Alba, Lily Rabe, Shannon Woodward and Thomas Jane
Studio: Blumhouse Productions
Synopsis: Twenty-five years after members of a religious cult committed mass suicide, the lone survivor returns to the scene of the tragedy with a documentary crew in tow. – (Source)

The Good:
Thomas Jane was fantastic as the creepily charismatic leader of the Heaven’s Veil cult. At times Jane seemed to be doing an homage to the Powers Boothe performance as real life cult leader Jim Jones in the old GUYANA TRAGEDY TV movie and at other times he was doing something wholly original but just as fascinating to watch.

The Bad:
Aside from Jane’s injection of acting gusto the rest of this cast was horribly used (Lily Rabe seemed to be directed to act dazed and confused in all her scenes) or just phoning it in (Jessica Alba who seemed to want to be anywhere but on the set of this movie) which is a shame because the cast, that included personal favorite TV actors like Shannon Woodward and Reid Scott, was capable of much more than what we got in this film.
The movie also trafficked in non-stop horror movie cliches and pedestrian directing which I am sure didn’t do much to energize the majority of the cast. And worst of all there was nothing scary about the movie at all.

The Ugly:
Kinda messed up that when the Feds come to raid the cult compound that the only person who gets shot is the only black cult member. What’s up with that?

Final Verdict: The idea of a ghost tale based on a suicide cult is a pretty interesting one and Thomas Jane truly gives it the old college try in his role as the cult leader but the movie just never seems to go anywhere and aside from Jane’s energy everything else in THE VEIL just comes across as completely flat and lifeless.

Grade: D+