The Blackcoat’s Daughter - Oz Perkins
Rating: 8/10
Rating: 8/10
Before I sat down with it, The Blackcoat’s Daughter was little more than a name and some internet buzz. Out of all the cast, I recognized only Emma Roberts’s face, and that took me until almost the halfway mark as I am not very familiar with her work. From what I understand, her role in this movie isn’t entirely left-field since she has starred in American Horror Story and Scream Queens before, but my instincts tell me that her involvement in those horror properties probably didn’t demand quite the level of nuance she demonstrates here. With relatively little dialogue across the board, and hers a fairly minimal role in the scheme of things, she is mostly constrained to physical acting and does an excellent job communicating shifting emotional degrees through changes of posture and expression, as well as a notable turn in her relationships with the rest of the movie’s characters.
“The scheme of things” takes a while to puzzle out, as The Blackcoat’s Daughter follows a nonlinear, dual-storyline structure and a measured, thoughtful (but not slow) pace. Google’s official synopsis is this: “During the dead of winter, a troubled young woman embarks on a mysterious journey to an isolated prep school where two stranded students face a sinister threat from an unseen evil force.” Roberts plays “troubled young woman” Joan, the “two stranded students” are Kat (Kiernan Shipka) and Rose (Lucy Boynton), and although the movie avoids telling us outright, it’s clear that Joan and Kat are connected early on. Kat and Rose are stranded at their Catholic prep school, which is let out for winter break. Kat’s parents seem to have vanished en route. Rose’s, she explains, did not know school was getting out earlier than Friday, and will not be able to reschedule their flight any earlier. After some discussion, it’s decided between the two girls, the headmaster, and a pair of school nurses on duty over the break that Rose, a senior, will watch over freshman Kat until Rose’s parents arrive to take her away and Kat’s situation is sorted out.
Things complicate, or rather, are already more complicated than they appear. The movie opens with a disquieting segment in which Kat dreams of her father, dressed in black and his face perpetually out-of-frame, pointing out her mother’s wrecked vehicle in the snow. Some time after the girls meet with the headmaster, it comes to light that Rose’s parents aren’t simply neglectful - Rose needs to tell her boyfriend that she is pregnant, and lied to her parents about the exact day her winter break begins. The intrigue already mounting, things take a turn when Rose introduces the movie’s first hint of the supernatural in the midst of your typical “spook the freshman” gesture: she asks Kat whether she knows that the nurses wear wigs, and that their eyebrows are false. When Kat indicates that she doesn’t know, Rose coolly informs her that they were caught devil-worshipping right at school, and burned them off in the course of worship.
Meanwhile, Joan is picked up at a deserted bus stop by kindly man named Bill. Joan is quiet and reserved, and it is easy to feel for her as she wanders the night in previous scenes, and to feel afraid for her as she accepts Bill’s offer. That his wife is present in the car diffuses some tension, but it is difficult to believe in the kindness of strangers, especially in a horror movie - and for a while, it seems as if our fears will be justified. One of the film’s most unnerving scenes occurs in the hotel the three stay in overnight when Joan, in no more than a towel and her hair still dripping, lets Bill into her room. The apprehension mounts as he locks the door and takes a seat opposite her, the scene unfolding in peculiar ellipses as they ply one another for motivation. Nothing happens, ultimately, but this scene leaves an unshakeable impression of danger that lingers over the rest of the movie.
It, as well as virtually the entire movie, is awash in chiaroscuro. Light always seems to be weak or departing, leaving thick swathes of shadow to suggests a constant threat. In tandem with a rumbling score occasionally spiked with cello trills straight out of The Witch, The Blackcoat’s Daughter is a study in dread one that relies on atmosphere and structure to scare us and uses minimal gore to enhance these strengths. As such, its flaws reveal themselves slowly: despite a small cast and its tightly-written narrative halves, the pregnancy subplot feels thinly-written, inserted just to give Rose an excuse to mislead her parents and move the plot along. It’s used for equally thin dramatic effect and has no payoff. The supernatural elements of the plot are compelling and expertly-handled for the most part, and in an effort to preserve the film’s mystery, I have tried not to give away specifics. But once it becomes clear what kind of “supernatural” we’re dealing with, several tropes infiltrate the film, and the nature of the threat becomes a bit too literal, bringing down what could have been a far more fascinating slab of horror filmmaking with more reason to doubt what is happening and what ultimately unites the narratives. Still, we do get a memorably disturbing image a blade in phallic silhouette that, despite having no connection to the encounter between Joan and Bill earlier in the film, manages to fulfill the unspoken threat hanging over their meeting. There’s no doubt regarding its significance in context, and it reorients many of the films thematic concerns around a brutal metaphor.
Like The Witch last year and The Babadook the year before that, The Blackcoat’s Daughter joins their ranks as another Bechdel-approved, psychologically-intensive, bonafide horror movie that, while not nearly as original as either of those movies, is bold enough in its storytelling and focused enough in its direction to earn a place on your horror watchlist for the year. It’s altogether a richer and more layered film than it seems and an exemplary piece of atmospheric modern horror.
- Brian L.
Archival details
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- https://metallifestyle.weebly.com/curtains-movie--tv-reviews/review-the-blackcoats-daughter
- Recovery source
- live-weebly
- Recovery date
- 2026-07-22
- Stewardship polish
- 2026-07-22
- Preservation status
- restored
- Missing assets
- None recorded
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