‘I’m just sad you’ll miss my performance...’
It takes guts to create a film that chooses to build tension rather than throwing the viewer in headfirst. The Blackcoat’s Daughter is an uncompromising jigsaw puzzle that only reveals its grotesque true face in the final act – and even then that face is unknowable and opaque…
The Blackcoat’s Daughter follows three troubled young women. Joan (Emma Roberts) has escaped from some kind of asylum and is attempting to reach an unknown location for an unknown reason. Kat (Kiernan Shipka) is an awkward freshman who seems to harbour dark thoughts and Rose (Lucy Boynton) is a confident and self-assured senior who fears she might be pregnant. When neither Kat nor Rose’s parents arrive at the boarding school they both attend to take them home for Christmas, the two of them are forced to spend the holidays together.
I will begin by saying that if you are someone that doesn’t like a mystery, this is not the film for you. I left The Blackcoat’s Daughter with more questions than answers, but the execution (so to speak) is so daring and bleak that I didn’t mind that one bit. It also helps that the three female leads all excel with Shipka creepily intense in what must have been a demanding role and Roberts suitably severe also. Boynton brings something different to the film with a nuanced performance that lays bare her character’s convictions but also her vulnerabilities. Together, the three of them ensure that The Blackcoat’s Daughter remains captivating and compelling even in its more esoteric moments.
Writer-director Oz Perkins crafts a believable world in the Catholic boarding school in which the school is set, forgoing the usual gothic setting for a location that feels more like a hospital with long winding corridors often bathed in shadows. Having said that, the boiler room in the basement is straight out of the Victorian era and all of these things combine to create a striking visual effect.
The nihilistic violence of The Blackcoat’s Daughter will put some people off, as will the labyrinthine plot, horror aficionados will find a lot here to enjoy, however. I certainly did.