The Blackcoat’s Daughter is a slow-paced, mysterious narrative where you need to figure out for yourself how the pieces fits together. It’s not a type of horror movie that relies on sudden increases of audio volume and other clichés associated with horror movies (OK, maybe there’s one which I mention at the end of the next paragraph). Instead working on a shock-value and a jump-scare it does so in the vein of terror. It features boarding school for girls and a demonic possession, two core settings of horror movies. I have really enjoyed the movie and rated it 8/10.
There are various theories circulating the internet about the plot/it’s ending and I think the true one is that at the end of the movie Joan (grown-up Kat) is incredibly sad because the offerings to the demon, probably Satan himself, didn’t work in terms of her being repossessed and is thus left alone. Joan is played by Emma Roberts and she is the reason I’ve decided to watch the movie after seeing it’s announcement on a local cinema’s schedule for a Halloween night. But the actress Kiernan Shipka who plays Kat (she’s actually nine years younger version of Joan) and whom the movie is revolving around, steals the show. We also have another girl, Rose (Lucy Boynton), in the same timeline as Kat’s, with the mentality of your average girl in horror movies – young, beautiful, gets killed when investigating strange sounds like she never saw a horror movie before.
After finishing the movie I wondered for a moment why the writers opted for two different actress playing the same character. I know that the answer is to make story more mysterious and appealing to viewers. Related to that I believe parents of Rose should have recognized the killer’s face albeit being nine years older. It’s not like she underwent a plastic surgery while being locked in a mental institution for all nine years. 😀
The Blackcoat’s Daughter is a directorial debut by Oz Perkins, a son of late Anthony Perkins (Norman Bates in Psycho). What’s a complete surprise in closing credits was the music score was provided by Elvis Perkins, director’s brother. The two of them also come up with a movie title since previous one was rejected by distributor who thought it doesn’t indicate a genre strongly enough.