At a boarding school before winter break, two young women are left behind to wait for their parents to arrive, if they ever will. However, they are not alone. A disturbing evil resides in the halls. Will they survive until their parents come? Or will they be overcome by the darkness inside?
So the in-laws were in town for the beginning of Horrotober this year. Luckily it was easy to convince them to watch a couple of movies with us. However, instead of wanting to watch my planned Lights Out ("too scary"), they chose this one. The Blackcoat's Daughter tells a story about two young women at the Bramford School for girls left to spend winter break at the school because their parents did not arrive to take them home. Katherine (Kat; Kiernan Shipka) has a disturbing dream where she stands by a dark figure she calls "daddy" looking at a smashed up car. Rose (Lucy Boynton) is an angsty teen that discovers she may be pregnant and when she talks to her boyfriend about it, he seems to reject her. Rose and Kat don't really get along but when Kat finds Rose in the boiler room talking to the furnace, she is scared for Kat, herself, and those who remain at the school. It is not clear if some evil or the devil possesses Kat, but something at Bramford is quite wrong. Oh and then throw Joan (Emma Roberts) into the mix, a young woman that appears down on her luck and hitches a ride with some strangers. What is Joan's story? Is it connected? Who are the strangers that she rides with? Will they arrive at Bramford and Joan will be trapped with Kat, Rose, and the evil at the school? (see below for spoilers to those answers) The film had a creepy atmosphere with some great sound editing and score, pretty good acting from all three of the leading ladies, and a fairly intriguing story written and directed by the son of Psycho (Anthony Perkins' son, Oz Perkins).
SPOILERS: Once some key information is supplied (the strangers are Rose's parents) it becomes clear that Joan is actually Kat escaped from some hospital. Kat was maybe possessed by the devil and killed Rose along with the two workers that stayed with the girls at the school. Later she is found with their severed heads in front of the furnace and is shot by an officer after she nonchalantly says,"Hail Satan." At a hospital, the head priest of the school attempts to exorcise the devil out of Kat and when the not so terrifying devil or bunny shadow disappears, Kat whispers, "Don't go." So back to Joan, now that we know she is Kat, she is travelling with Rose's parents and then kills them before they reach Bramford, severing their heads and stuffing them into a suitcase to then drag it back to the school. When she lays the heads in front of the furnace and sees that it is not on, and does not come on with her sacrifice, she realizes she is truly alone.
I liked that the movie was very atmospheric, a bit gruesome, and a little bit more of a psychological drama with Kat/Joan. Some dark force may have preyed on Kat when she had a premonition of her parents' deaths and felt alone but it is almost as if she became attached to that presence. She is sad when it leaves her and when she returns and brings the severed heads, she is hoping the presence returns. When it doesn't, she screams in agony because maybe the loss of her parents and the reality of the horrendous acts she has committed under the guise of the devil, finally hits her. However, some aspects of the film bothered me. Like, what really are the chances that she would encounter Rose's parents after she escaped the hospital? Did she plan it, and if she was trapped in the hospital how would she have known they would be on a certain route to Bramford to lay flowers on their daughter's grave? Or was it more of she really wanted to escape it all but upon learning they were Rose's parents the memories returned and motivated her to return to Bramford and bring back the devil? Or were they merely used in the plot to make it more mysterious and seem that Joan at first was a different character from Kat? Either way, the predictability of Kat/Joan and the use of Rose's parents cheapened an otherwise nearly perfect story for me and hence I gave it a lower rating.
Aimee's rating:
Michael's and Joey's rating:
My rating:
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