A reason to take an early Spring Break.
Some movies are just plain frustrating. They have a capable cast and an interesting idea at their core, but are never able to utilize these elements in order to make something compelling. Such is the case with writer/director Oz Perkins' The Blackcoat's Daughter.
The film, which stars Emma Roberts, Kiernan Shipka and Lucy Boynton, is the tale of two students at a private school during the February break. Played by Shipka and Boynton respectively, Kat and Rose are in different grades, not friends, and stuck at school for different reasons, but thrust together due to their circumstances. The audience watches as the girls wait to be picked up and things get increasingly dark and disturbing. Naturally, there are tales of odd rituals taking place at the school, and since this is a horror film, the audience must pay attention to those stories.
Then there is Joan (Roberts), who isn't at the school but rather travelling to it for reasons the audience initially doesn't know. She gets a ride from a couple traveling in the same direction, and the movie regularly intercuts Joan's story with the goings-on at the school.
The juxtaposition doesn't work, and it doesn't work in large part because there is nothing remotely believable in the way the characters act in Joan's portion of the movie. Starting with the initial notion of the couple Bill (James Remar) and Linda (Lauren Holly) picking Joan up, and continuing through the entirety of her trip, the audience is left scratching their head. Eventually the question becomes less why Joan or this couple would act in the ways in which they do and more why anyone would think they might act in these ways. Beyond that, in a movie where the dialogue is lacking, these scenes are unquestionably the weakest.
As Perkins structures the film, Joan's trip should be an essential part of the tale and ought to pack some of the biggest punches. As executed, however, it isn't and it doesn't. Instead, it detracts from the whole, pulling the viewer out of the story at the school and making the film's overall flaws more obvious.
Naturally, a mostly empty school offers up a creepy atmosphere, but that isn't something that The Blackcoat's Daughter makes the most of as it unfolds. The audience never has a good sense of how the place is organized, either physically or administratively, and so while buildings and a few individuals are seen, how they fit together into the larger scheme of things is unclear. Even the campus shutting down as much as it does during a mid-semester vacation feels odd.
There is, in fact, much that is left unclear in Perkins' film. This is a movie which runs as long as it does largely on the director holding things back from the audience. It is a movie that is obsessed with keeping its cards close to its vest, but unfortunately also a movie where many audience members will instantly be able to correctly guess those cards despite being unable to see them.
This problem is worse than it first might seem as Blackcoat's Daughter doesn't have much more to offer than those poorly hidden cards. It is perfectly content with its obvious and easy twists and never fully builds a deeper reasoning or logic to them. It is creepy mutterings and indistinct voices and ominous dialogue used in service of little more than their own existence.
Without a doubt, the film does offer the sense that there is a larger backstory that has been constructed around it. But as none of it ever comes out, by the time the credits roll the audience has to decide for themselves whether that backstory truly exists or if it is simply a head fake designed to offer the illusion of substance when none is present.
It is clear that Perkins has a good handle on what makes for a creepy vibe -- empty halls, abandoned buildings, rumors of evil, basement furnaces, odd dreams, darkness, and weird voices; but Blackcoat's Daughter never goes beyond offering those basic elements (and maybe some blood). Consequently, they wind up as hindrances to the experience rather than aiding in it.
The Verdict
If one is looking to be made mildly uncomfortable by watching a horror movie, The Blackcoat's Daughter fits the bill. However, while it has all the requisite foreboding aspects to make that discomfort occur, those parts are as generic as the story the movie tells. Oz Perkins may make an attempt to hide the film's bland nature by jumping between locations and refusing to allow Kat and Rose to have very many conversations, but it isn't enough. These things make the story, and its twists, all the more clear from the beginning.
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