Spooktober Review: “The Blackcoat’s Daughter”

Throughout “Spooktober,” Nicklaus Neitling reviews one horror property each weekday.

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I’ve watched The Blackcoat’s Daughter twice now, and I still don’t understand its title.

Directed by Oz Perkins, it has the growing pains of a directorial debut but is still worth a watch.

The film follows two boarding school girls waiting for their respective sets of parents to pick them up for Christmas break: a first year, Kat (Kieran Shipka), and an older student, Rose (Lucy Boynton). As they wait, spookiness ensues. Meanwhile, we’re introduced to Joan (Emma Roberts), a lone women travelling by bus. At the station, she is picked up by Bill (James Remar) and Linda (Lauren Holly) as they travel to a boarding school upstate.

Substantial spoilers ahead.

For the film’s first two acts, it has the qualities of tense atmospheric horror, the stories playing out simultaneously to slowly unfold a mystery. Kat and Rose’s story at the school begins to reveal their shared dysfunction. Rose is trying to hide and deal with a pregnancy. Kat is dealing with her own mysterious issue. Simultaneously, we start to worry about Joan’s troubled past, and learn that Bill and Linda are Rose’s parents.

Then it’s revealed that the story is non-linear.

The third act begins with the reveal that Joan is Kat, who killed Rose and the teachers left at the school years before while possessed by a demon. But the film continues for 20 minutes past this point, completely deflating any tension left in Rose and Kat’s story. We know how it ends, so its pacing becomes tedious. The tension is somewhat maintained in the present with Bob, Linda, and “Joan,” but the endgame is poor.

The movie’s main problem is that it shows its hand too early. The twist is effective but the story isn’t ready for it, so we’re left with a deflated third act that could’ve have been brilliant.

That being said, Perkins took a risk and it should be rewarded. More filmmakers should try to tell their stories in creative ways and stray away from the safety of generic conventions. Perkins has a promising career ahead if he continues to take risks and develop his craft.

The Blackcoat’s Daughter’s end shot echoes a theme present throughout the entire film: loneliness. Despite a deflated third act, this moment still works. I think it’s a loneliness we may all have felt, demonic possession notwithstanding.