The Blackcoat's Daughter Worth Watching?

It's about a couple of girls, and a couple of satanic nuns, hunkering down alone at a Catholic boarding school over winter break.

The Blackcoat's Daughter was directed by Oz Perkins (who also directed Gretel & Hansel and I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House) and stars Emma Roberts (from Scream 4), Kiernan Shipka (from The Silence and Carriers) and Lucy Boynton (from Apostle and Don't Knock Twice).

Abandoned as a child. Raised by the dark.

The Blackcoat's Daughter is an eerie and atmospheric Canadian horror movie written and directed by Oz Perkins, the son of Anthony Perkins aka Norman Bates from Psycho . Oz actually had a roll in Psycho 2 as the twelve-year-old version of Norman. He also directed the Netflix original I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House and the upcoming highly anticipated Gretel and Hansel .

One thing to get out of the way early, The Blackcoat's Daughter is an A24 film and all A24 horrors are the same. They're very slow burns, most of the runtime is uneventful drama backed by screechy violins and their movies all play out the same. Nothing really happens throughout the first hour, then there's a big shock, then back to the slow burn while revealing plot details in a non-linear way, then wrapping up with another major shock. Roll credits. The Witch, Hereditary and Midsommar, other popular A24 films, share this same formula.

This doesn't take anything away from A24 movies, it just let's you know what to expect.

Like The Witch and Hereditary, The Blackcoat's Daughter is also about satanic rituals. Midsommar has similar rituals, but performed for cultish reasons rather than satanic.

The Blackcoat's Daughter is very dreary and moody, creating a thick atmosphere of hopelessness and dread which easily carried the movie. The cast, script, score... everything worked. And the twists that start revealing themselves beyond the hour mark are pretty damn intense. No spoilers, but I'll just say the things you witness are not what you'd expect given the setting within a Catholic girls school. Unsettling to say the least.

This way the plot plays out in this movie is very mind bendy. Not only is it told in a non-linear way, but it's also told through alternative timelines which makes it tricky to follow. But, it also gives you something to think about hours after you watch which is always a good quality in a horror movie. I might actually have to watch this one again just to fill in a few gaps.