Time: 93 Minutes
Age Rating: R16 – Violence, horror & content that may disturb
Cast:
Emma Roberts as Joan
Kiernan Shipka as Katherine
Lucy Boynton as Rose
Lauren Holly as Linda
James Remar as Bill
Director: Osgood Perkins

The Blackcoat’s Daughter was a movie that I knew a little about, just that it starred Emma Roberts and Lucy Boynton and was a horror movie that seemed to get a lot of praise. I do think it’s decent, but it could’ve been even better.

The Blackcoat’s Daughter is very much a slow burn. It does require patience and you have to really put things together to understand what’s happening. Thematically the concepts are intriguing enough, if done before, and I like how bleak and hopeless it feels throughout. For a while, it did have me interested to see where it was going. It was the midway point where the issues started showing for me. At around that point, I had figured out what the eventual twists and reveals would be. Instead of having a haunting and foreboding sense of dread as it progressed towards the end, this predictability somewhat pulled me out of it and I became considerably less interested. The first half is very much the build up and the second half is the payoff, but the former worked a lot better for me, the payoff really wasn’t that strong for me.

The performances are great. Kiernan Shipka is especially amazing and uneasy, and Emma Roberts and Lucy Boynton are really good.

Osgood Perkins directed this very well, it’s very polished with an appealing style. The winter atmosphere is conveyed very well with the cinematography and production design. The sound design is really good with a solid ambient vibe, and the score is fittingly tense.

The Blackcoat’s Daughter is a slow burn and atmospheric horror mystery, with a familiar plot, and easy to guess twists. However, the acting from everyone is great, it’s visually stunning, directed well, and I was intrigued for much of it.