Reviews
‘The Veil’ a story by Richard Chance.
by john on Dec.09, 2007, under Reviews
Screenplay by John Chance and Richard Chance
Reviewed by B’Hellmouth from zombiecore band Send More Paramedics
Richard Chance’s film ‘The Veil’ is brutal enough to terrify even the dead themselves.
This new independent zombie flick brings the undead horror of such films such as Romero’s Night of the living dead to the coast of southern England. The opening scene sees a biological agent release a virus amidst holiday scenes in a typical English seaside town. With a spare yet effective soundtrack combining threatening synths a la John Carpenter with atmospheric Mogwai-style rock, the black and white footage creates a gritty, realistic feel that matches the gasmasks and military hardware bristling from the laconic protagonists, a group of soldiers involved in the management of the zombie contagion whose mission rapidly turns into one of survival.
The dark atmosphere is enhanced by effective use of night scenes which defamiliarise mundane locations such suburban house, village street and open countryside. The special effects are extremely inventive, not to say horrifying viewers are treated to such delights as a Freddie-from-Nightmare-on-Elm-Street-zombie, dog attacks, human zombie torches, deaths by flying cleaver, exploding heads, and (my personal favourite) multiple-limb-severment-and-decapitation-by-chainsaw (the spinning brain-pan has to be seen to be believed!) The zombies are genuinely gacky and meet a variety of appropriately horrendous ends at the hands of our heroes (the car-dragging scene was particularly impressive) Although the film perhaps suffers slightly from a lack of character development (our protagonists are masked throughout…I think it might be ’cause they’re playing the zombies too!) and from the relentlessness of the violence, The Veil offers a satisfyingly grim dash through the darkness of an England suddenly plunged into a biological catastrophe.
Shaun of the dead this ain’t – in The Veil the dead are real serious, and they’re coming to where you live next!
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