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Joel and Will discover that a friend, American comedian Sara, has had a very similar experience to Tony. Seemingly in the same place.

Broken Veil continues its tightrope walk between truth and fiction with a second episode that’s the definition of M R James’ idea of the ‘pleasing terror’. This episode is focused on Sara, an American comedian and friend of theirs who played an increasingly terrifying gig in the same place as Tony had his ‘medical’ last week.

This second episode doubles down on the deep unease of the first. Sara is a fantastic interviewee and we’re in lockstep with her as her corporate gig goes weird, then south and then… liminal. The concept of liminal spaces as a canvas for horror is one relatively new to the mainstream, and best explored by the Back Rooms series of YouTube videos. As Joel and Will describe here, the idea of ‘getting lost in a nondescript space’ is the exact sort of horror we don’t see coming. The exact sort of horror that functions like an anglerfish, luring victims in with the pleasing familiarity of the conference centre, the shared working space, the mundane focused to a beige knife edge that cuts through reality into something terrifying and uncanny and unreal.

The Backrooms are referenced here, as is horror classic House of Leaves. We also get one of those beautiful moments you only ever find in horror podcasting, where a single phrase stops you short. Sara hears two words during her time in the building and her response to that is an incredible moment. She can’t even say the words out loud, even years later. The liminal spaces of the show’s relationship between fact and fiction, the liminal spaces of the building, the creeping sense of something awful wearing a nice tie. All of it focused on those two words, and on the almost off hand breakthrough that closes the episode.

Verdict: Incredibly convincing, incredibly unsettling and you’re going to want to go straight onto the next episode. 9/10

Alasdair Stuart

 

Recommended Research

The Backrooms

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Backrooms

House of Leaves

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Leaves