The Blackcoat’s Daughter (2017) | 31 Days of Horror: Oct 9

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The blackcoats are coming, the blackcoats are coming!

The Blackcoat’s Daughter presents a bleak look at the journey of one young girl as she tries to reconnect with the only thing that has ever loved her. It also serves a metaphor for untreated mental illness and trauma.

Before Viewing

Two girls aren’t picked up on time from their girls school and get locked in or stuck. There are many mysterious things going on with the staff, which all appear to be members of the clergy. There’s bloody footprints through the snow. Close up of a strangulation with a belt. And other strange or graphic goings on. And how does the title tie into this? Is one of the girls the titular daughter? A24 week on 31 Days of Horror continues.

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

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After Viewing

At the Bramford School, a Catholic girls school in upstate New York, Kat (Kiernan Shipka) crosses off another day until her parents arrive for their late February school break. She has a dream that they were killed in an auto accident but doesn’t tell anyone. Another student Rose (Lucy Boynton) fears she might be pregnant, all the while keeping up her cheerful demeanor. Neither girls’ parents show up to take them home. Kat is concerned, but Rose obviously never informed her parents of the proper date.

The headmaster, Mr Gordon (Peter James Haworth), promises that things will be fine and leaves the girls under the care of two nurses, Ms. Prescott (Elana Krausz) and Mrs. Drake (Heather Tod Mitchell). Rose, a senior, teases the younger Kat that the nurses are secretly devil worshippers with no body hair, just before sneaking out to go on a date with a boy. Kat snoops through Rose’s desk, after being told explicitly not to.

Elsewhere, Joan (Emma Roberts) shows up at a train station having either been released or escaped from a hospital. She is contemplating how to get somewhere when Bill (James Remar) strikes up a conversation with her. She appears underdressed for the cold weather and he offers to give her a ride. His wife Linda (Lauren Holly) is not crazy about the idea, but he indicates he’s just trying to help.

Rose returns from her date, hearing something strange in the dormitories. She proceeds to the basement and witnesses Kat performing a creepy genuflect towards the boiler. Bill offers Joan some dinner and tells her why he stopped to help her. She reminds him of his daughter, who he lost 9 years ago. He shares a picture with Joan–his daughter is Rose! A flashback shows Joan strangling another woman named Joan, and stealing her identification.

At dinner, Kat cannot say grace properly, taking a very casual tone with the nurses, before vomiting on the table. She insults the women, who receive a call from Mr Gordon, and then ask Rose to shovel the walkway. When Mr Gordon arrives, he has a state trooper with him. They enter the residence and are shocked to see a bloody handprint and the two decapitated bodies of the nurses.

Rose awakens in her dorm after a nap, and is relieved to see she has gotten her period. She again hears a noise and while investigating is attacked by Kat who stabs her and cuts off her head. The state trooper finds young Kat with three severed heads in front of the boiler and shoots her as she comes toward him muttering, “Hail Satan.” Kat is admitted to a hospital and undergoes an exorcism by Father Brian (Greg Ellwand). It is a success since Kat can no longer hear the voice she was getting comfort from or see the shadowy figure that is visible in the corner.

Joan, who is revealed to be an older Kat, kills Bill and Linda as they drive by Bramford. She takes their heads and returns to the boiler room. The school is shut down and the boiler no longer runs. She walks out to the main road as dawn is breaking and begins to cry and scream.

“Do you believe in God, Joan?I find him in the little things that happen, little coincidences.” – Bill

The Blackcoat’s Daughter, also called February in some prints (as it was the director’s first choice for a title), is Osgood “Oz” Perkins’ first directorial film from a script also written by him. It continues the week of A24 films, which now all seem to be about the supernatural and the occult. It’s an interesting film that creates misdirection and includes a subtle twist about halfway through changing the trajectory of the film for the better. It borrows ideas from films like Suspira, The Exorcist, and  Rosemary’s Baby, adding in the isolationism of any number of films, plus an interesting time jump making two stories that seemed to be taking place at the same time, become separated by nine years.

First off, let’s mention the strange title of the film. Just what is a blackcoat? Obviously, it can be referencing a “black coat,” but some online searching indicates that the term “blackcoat” also refers to an English clergyperson, in much the same way that “redcoat” refers to a soldier. That might be a potential MacGuffin by the filmmakers in order to put suspicion on the religious headmasters of the school. But it could also reference something else. The opening sequence shows part of Kat’s dream where a man (maybe her devilish father figure) wears a black coat while showing her the wreck of the car. She has somehow become surrogate to a demonic possession and possibly considers herself Satan’s daughter. It’s an enigmatic enough title to seduce viewers into a film at least.

Kudos to the trailer of the film for starting some of the misdirection. Between that and the characterizations of the priests and nurses, the film creates heavy suspicion that they are into something evil. Ms. Prescott in particular looks like a strict woman that might be into witchcraft. Add to that the fact that Rose teases Kat about the fact that Sisters have no hair on their body and they are into worshiping the Devil. This would be in line with a film like Suspiria, where the teachers at the girls school are a coven of witches using the students as sacrifices. It’s a clever change to have Kat become the one in league with the demon.

The other twist which comes as a surprise is the reveal that Joan is actually an older Kat–by nine years. Initially Joan’s introduction at the bus station appears to be a character that will cause problems for Kat and Rose, and in a way she does. There’s nothing at that time to reveal that we are in a future timeline. Perkins sets up some clues however, which include Joan using two quarters to make a phone call that does not connect, and later showing Kat holding two quarters in a similar way at a payphone. Joan has a scar on her shoulder, presumably from where Kat is shot by the deputy when he finds her. Joan’s wet, slick back hairstyle when she gets out of the tub matches the look that Kat adopts in the following scenes. All being further clues about the duality of the character. But it’s about halfway through the film when Bill reveals that his daughter Rose was killed 9 years ago, that really starts the audience thinking that something might be up.

This is purely coincidence, but both yesterday’s The Witch and today’s The Blackcoat’s Daughter deal with occult elements surrounding awkward adolescent females. In The Witch, Thomasin teases Mercy that she is a witch causing the younger sister to freak out. This turns out to be foreshadowing of a sort. In this film, Rose teases Kat that the sisters in the school are devil worshipers, obviously in an attempt to unsettle the younger girl. In this case Kat is actually the one in league with a demon, unbeknownst to both the audience and Rose at that moment. It seems as if both films, but this one moreso, are dealing with aspects of mental illness. Kat may be possessed but she also has a twisted sense of reality, especially in her older guise as Joan. Her initial trauma (losing her parents may not have been the impetus) sends this girl’s fragile psyche into a tailspin, which continues to remain untreated even nine years later as she tries to get back into the embrace of her very own demon.

I had no idea what to expect from this film, mainly due to the title being so cryptic. It turns out to be an interesting horror film that has a lot of slow burn, and not too many jump scares or overt gore. Perkins knows how to show just enough of the horror to get the point across (someone’s throat, that is), without going into too graphic a territory. It’s also a horror film that makes the audience feel sorry for the antagonist. Joan/Kat is such a lonely character. Even with Bill reaching out to her, she still believes that killing him can bring back the connection to the demon she once communed with. She just has a broken soul that even human connection cannot fix. Come back tomorrow for another horror film from A24 studios, which may also turn out to be an occult thriller.

Assorted Musings

• The Bramford School, and the town of Bramford, are named after the apartment complex, The Bramford, in Rosemary’s Baby.
• In the diner, Bill’s dark shirt and white undershirt give the illusion of a priest’s frock, with the white sticking out of his collar. This may be a subconscious nod to Kat/Joan’s hatred of the clergy for exercising her demon.
• Oz Perkins may be most famously known for being the son of Anthony Perkins, who played Norman Bates in Psycho. Oz played a young version of Norman in the sequel Psycho II.