The Blackcoat's DaughterA heart that feels abandoned and alone is a heart that invites darkness. The Blackcoat's Daughter is a psychological horror film about a tragedy that befalls a Catholic girls school in Bramford, New York--one filled with religious angst, psychosis, isolation, and perhaps satanic possession. After Kat (Kiernan Shipka) and her senior, Rose (Lucy Boynton) are left at the academy during an extended break, Rose grows concerned about Kat's questionable behavior. The film also follows Joan (Emma Roberts), an escapee from a mental institution who is picked up by couple of Good Samaritans--Bill (James Remar) and Linda (Lauren Holly)--who offer to drive her past Bramford, unaware of Joan's connection to the school's tragic past.
|
|
The Blackcoat's Daughter toys with the audience's expectations about time. The set design is deliberately old-fashioned which makes pinpointing the era in which the film is set impossible. The only assurance is that the story take place in the deep winter of February, where everything is coated in frigid snow and ice. Kat and Rose are loners compared to their peers; they are introverted and isolated, and are frequently in their Catholic school uniforms. Kat is a distant and quiet girl, whose insinuations and ominous turns of phrase give her a creepy edge, while Rose is worried about how to conceal her unexpected pregnancy from her parents. Even Joan withholds information about her past from Bill and Linda--imagine their reaction if they knew her whole story. The narrative structure of The Blackcoat's Daughter implies that these narrative arcs are concurrent, and twists this assumption around after revealing the fate of those left behind at the academy. The Blackcoat's Daughter often capitalizes on quiet moments to establish tension. Consider when Joan is confronted by Linda in the car, after an overly accommodating Bill has informed her that the purpose of their visit to Bramford is to pay their respects to their late daughter, and after telling her that she looks a lot like his little girl. Linda says that her husband sees their daughter in many different girls of Joan's age, although Linda doesn't see the resemblance, and communicates her mistrust through a story pregnant with tension, as though either one of them could snap at any second.
The Blackcoat's Daughter thrives on exploiting the ignorance of the audience by cultivating feelings of discomfort and awkward unease. What little the audience knows about Joan's past comes from a series of brief but intense flashbacks--such as how Joan was shot, her escape from the asylum, and assumed her identity. Like Kat, Joan is an inscrutable character, who conceals her inner thoughts. Her violent past and neutral demeanor recalls the uncomfortable mix of predatory coolness and ambivalence from Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, more unnerving since Joan is a teenager. And like Joan, Kat's calm exterior masks her unsettling behavior that escalates with time. Rose witnesses a bizarre ritual involving Kat prostrate in front of the building's furnace, as if she were worshiping the flame emanating from it. The Blackcoat's Daughter teases that this is a kind of "cabin fever" psychosis comes from being stuck inside during the winter with someone whose sanity is already diminishing at a rapid pace, recalling Jack Torrance's breakdown in The Shining. Kat's psychological stability is already flimsy from the start of The Blackcoat's Daughter; consider how she adopts an accusatory tone with a priest who says that he will not be present to witness her performance at a school recital. The Blackcoat's Daughter suggests that the primary conflict will be between Kat and Rose, due to their divergent personalities, alluded to in subtle physical details; Kat has her hair done up in tight braids, while Rose--who delivers an easy smile during her school photo--has her hair loose and free. The film is noncommittal about whether Kat is under the influence of the Prince of Darkness, or whether she only believes that she is. Her earliest dreams intimate that she has foreknowledge of some tragic fate befalling her parents, but it is just as likely that she is inventing a story in her head to justify why her parents would not come to pick her up on the break--a fantasy that exacerbates her slackening grip on reality. Her increasingly erratic behavior draws comparisons to The Exorcist, including how the film has undercurrents of religious angst and emotional rebelliousness often found in teenage girls. Because few to none really know Kat and Joan, their actions seem random and dangerous, distancing them from others, contributing to their overwhelming feelings of loneliness and alienation.
Recommended for: Fans of a quiet and deliberately-paced psychological horror film that juggles everything from demonic possession, religious angst, and the struggles of girls on the cusp of adulthood. The Blackcoat's Daughter is an unsettling and creepy suspense film accented by the bleak, wintry setting, with plot twists that unfold into a bigger tableaux of tragedy.
The Blackcoat's Daughter thrives on exploiting the ignorance of the audience by cultivating feelings of discomfort and awkward unease. What little the audience knows about Joan's past comes from a series of brief but intense flashbacks--such as how Joan was shot, her escape from the asylum, and assumed her identity. Like Kat, Joan is an inscrutable character, who conceals her inner thoughts. Her violent past and neutral demeanor recalls the uncomfortable mix of predatory coolness and ambivalence from Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, more unnerving since Joan is a teenager. And like Joan, Kat's calm exterior masks her unsettling behavior that escalates with time. Rose witnesses a bizarre ritual involving Kat prostrate in front of the building's furnace, as if she were worshiping the flame emanating from it. The Blackcoat's Daughter teases that this is a kind of "cabin fever" psychosis comes from being stuck inside during the winter with someone whose sanity is already diminishing at a rapid pace, recalling Jack Torrance's breakdown in The Shining. Kat's psychological stability is already flimsy from the start of The Blackcoat's Daughter; consider how she adopts an accusatory tone with a priest who says that he will not be present to witness her performance at a school recital. The Blackcoat's Daughter suggests that the primary conflict will be between Kat and Rose, due to their divergent personalities, alluded to in subtle physical details; Kat has her hair done up in tight braids, while Rose--who delivers an easy smile during her school photo--has her hair loose and free. The film is noncommittal about whether Kat is under the influence of the Prince of Darkness, or whether she only believes that she is. Her earliest dreams intimate that she has foreknowledge of some tragic fate befalling her parents, but it is just as likely that she is inventing a story in her head to justify why her parents would not come to pick her up on the break--a fantasy that exacerbates her slackening grip on reality. Her increasingly erratic behavior draws comparisons to The Exorcist, including how the film has undercurrents of religious angst and emotional rebelliousness often found in teenage girls. Because few to none really know Kat and Joan, their actions seem random and dangerous, distancing them from others, contributing to their overwhelming feelings of loneliness and alienation.
Recommended for: Fans of a quiet and deliberately-paced psychological horror film that juggles everything from demonic possession, religious angst, and the struggles of girls on the cusp of adulthood. The Blackcoat's Daughter is an unsettling and creepy suspense film accented by the bleak, wintry setting, with plot twists that unfold into a bigger tableaux of tragedy.