THE BLACKCOAT'S DAUGHTER (FEBRUARY) (2015)

Studio:       A24
Director:    Osgood Perkins
Writer:       Osgood Perkins
Producer:  Adrienne Biddle, Rob Paris, Bryan Bertino, Robert Menzies, Alphonse Ghossein
Stars:     Emma Roberts, Kiernan Shipka, Lucy Boynton, Lauren Holly, James Remar

Review Score:

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Summary:

Parallel storylines connect a mourning couple’s mysterious hitchhiker with two students stranded at a boarding school haunted by whispers of devil worship.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

NOTE: Scenes are arranged chronologically.

Bramford School boarding student Katherine Cornish wakes from a dream in which her parents die in a horrific car crash. She later meets with resident priest Father Brian and is disappointed to learn that he will be leaving before the seasonal break, thus missing Kat’s performance at the recital.

Kat phones her parents to find out where they are. She hears only a voice through static telling her that her parents are not coming and instructing her to “kill all the c*nts.” Kat’s parents do not show up for her performance.

Headmaster Mr. Gordon meets with Kat to determine what to do since her parents have not yet arrived to collect her before break. Fellow student Rose, who recently discovered she is pregnant, is tasked with looking after Kat since she too is stranded at school after supposedly telling her parents to pick her up on the wrong day. Miss Prescott and Miss Drake also remain on the school grounds with the girls.

Rose tells Kat that Jen Darling’s sister supposedly saw Miss Prescott and Miss Drake worshipping the devil and that both women have no natural hair on their bodies. Later, Rose goes out with her boyfriend and reveals her pregnancy to him. Rose returns to the dorm and follows strange noises to the basement, where she finds Kat entranced in front of the blazing furnace.

The next day, Kat tells Rose that she was just sleepwalking. Kat also claims that her parents are dead.

Kat answers the pay phone ringing in a hallway. A strange voice tells Kat that she will stay there at The Bramford with him. Her demeanor growing stranger, Kat claims afterward that Mr. Gordon is on his way and that permission has been given for Kat to remain at the school.

Kat and Rose dine with Miss Prescott and Miss Drake at a house on campus. During the dinner, Kat continues behaving as though possessed, calling Miss Drake a c*nt before suddenly vomiting at the table. While Rose is busy taking a home pregnancy test that reveals she is not in fact pregnant, Kat stabs and murders Miss Drake and Miss Prescott. Soon after, Kat kills Rose.

Mr. Gordon eventually arrives at the house and discovers the decapitated bodies. A ranger accompanying Gordon finds Kat in front of the furnace with three severed heads. Kat rises to praise, “Hail Satan” and the ranger shoots her.

Father Brian attempts to perform an exorcism on Kat while she is restrained to her hospital bed.

Nine years later, Kat uses the stolen identity of Joan Marsh. Rose’s father Bill, on his way to pay tribute to his daughter on the anniversary of her death, sees Joan alone and seemingly distraught at the bus depot. He offers to give her a ride, much to his wife Linda’s chagrin. Joan claims she is going to Portsmouth, which is near Bramford. At various stops along the way, Bill tries getting closer to Joan through conversations about God as well as the revelation about his daughter’s murder. Bill claims that Joan reminds him of Rose, while Linda only resents Joan’s presence.

Joan claims to be getting sick from the drive and, over Linda’s vehement objections, forces Bill to pull over just as they are in front of The Bramford School. Joan suddenly slices Bill’s throat and stabs Linda to death. She then cuts off their heads and brings them to the school’s basement. Joan returns to the road outside and cries to herself.

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Review:

NOTE: "The Blackcoat's Daughter" was previously titled "February."

Somewhere in her world or somewhere in her mind, something is not right with Kat.  A student at the private Bramford boarding school, Kat is certain that misfortune has befallen her parents, which is why her headmaster is forced to let Kat stay in her dormitory when said parents are late collecting their daughter for semester break.  Bad girl Rose has a similar situation with travel arrangements, inspiring the headmaster’s temporary solution of having Rose look after Kat.  That task leads to Rose filling Kat’s already troubled thoughts with rumors of devil worship said to take place in secret somewhere within the building’s dark and dingy bowels.

Elsewhere, a quiet drifter by the name of Joan earns sympathy from a traveling stranger who offers to give the young woman a ride, much to his wife’s chagrin.  No one knows it yet, but everyone is hiding a personal history with Bramford poised to pull both plots together at the campus in question, and in a frightfully ghoulish manner.

With some shockingly grisly gore and sinister silhouettes of a shaggy horned creature, “The Blackcoat's Daughter” evokes the dark unholiness of a 1970s satanic thriller, except with 21st-century slow burn style.  Admittedly lifting scenes wholesale from “The Shining” and clearly reminiscent of films such as “Rosemary’s Baby” (review here), writer/director Osgood Perkins isn’t even attempting to hide the influences on his tone.  Naming the school Bramford isn’t exactly understated, after all.

“The Blackcoat's Daughter” aims to be a cerebral experience of macabre mood.  The camera is often frozen in place, playing a patience game with the drama that allows scenes to speak for themselves.  Relying on exceptional sound for much of its atmosphere, the story moves forward with a dreamlike feeling of subtle slow-motion, often conveyed through silence expressed by actors working with body language more than with words.

Kiernan Shipka of “Mad Men” and “One & Two” (review here) is as exceptional as ever.  Shipka is capable of conveying old soul eyes asking for sympathy as equally as she is able to smirk smugly in a manner morphing Kat from reserved good girl to the kind of kid frustrated parents wish they could slap without consequence.

Once swirled into its style, “The Blackcoat's Daughter” is darkly entrancing.  See through that style however, and the fiction doesn’t stand all the way up.  The film has a twist of sorts, though it seems so evident from the outset that it doesn’t appear wholeheartedly intended to be a real revelation.  That’s not the effect this film is after.

Were its scenes arranged chronologically, shrugged shoulders of “so what?” might be a common reaction.  Yet “The Blackcoat's Daughter” is presented in nonlinear fragments, similar to the storytelling of “Pulp Fiction,” and that approach of using the medium as expressive art gives the film its edge as an interpretive study accentuating nuance over narrative.

In a post-screening Q&A at Beyond Fest 2015, Perkins described “The Blackcoat's Daughter” as a personal project about the circular nature of grief, loss, and fashioning time into a place or space that can be explored.  It was insight that elevated my perspective of his film as more than an interesting effort of style able to brand an impression despite being light on literal substance.

But barring a personal Perkins appearance at every public screening or home viewing of the film, most audiences won’t benefit from his illumination on how to relate to “The Blackcoat's Daughter” as something with intent beyond commercial entertainment.  The impression one comes away with is thus dependent on a decision to view the film though a telescope of what it delivers or under a microscope of what it might mean.

Particularly in genre cinema, much is occasionally made about how festival circuit scuttlebutt seemingly skews perception of a buzzed-about movie.  Fought-over films regularly cycle through popular debate after each Sundance, SXSW, Cannes, et al, e.g. “The Babadook” (review here) or “It Follows” (review here), where for every drooling bite of boisterous praise comes a nay-saying accusation of drinking from hype-spiked Flavor-Aid.

Following its regional premieres at TIFF and Fantastic Fest in Fall 2015, “The Blackcoat's Daughter” tossed its horned cap in the ring as next in a line of horror world polarizers to achieve such love it or hate it status.  Various write-ups concluded there was no middle ground of split opinion to be had on the film, a claim I counter as being simply untrue.

Going in blind is usually the optimal way to approach any film.  In the instance of “The Blackcoat's Daughter,” knowing the style that is in store goes a long way toward preparing expectations for the experience.  That style delivers the kind of arty aesthetic that is mesmerizing for some while maddening for others, but you’re as likely to see the vision from both viewpoints as you are to stand firm on one side of its line.

Review Score:  65

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