The Blackcoat's Daughter is a new horror film directed by Oz Perkins, son of Norman Bates portrayer Anthony Perkins. Simply based on the household he grew up in, it would seem logical to expect Oz to know a little more about horror than he seems to. He understands atmosphere---that's for sure, but not how to apply it. There is also the best use of sound design I can think of in recent memory, never mind the fact that it's a few seconds of a slow, tedious film. Oz also seems to understand actors, which would make sense. His five leads are all incredibly dedicated to the material they're working with, even Lauren Holly, who gets practically nothing to do but disagree with James Remar, here playing her husband.
The story----Kat (Kiernan Shipka) is a boarding school student whose parents leave her to fend for herself at the school over break. Seeing as Kat has some pretty clear issues, the head of the school requests that Rose (Lucy Boynton,) who accidentally informed her parents not to come until Friday, look after her. The only problem is that Rose is a troublemaker and doesn't give a damn about Kat. Oh, also there are spooky things happening in the school. In a whole other section of the movie, Joan (Emma Roberts) is a stranded teen. A couple (Remar and Holly) who are heading the same way as her decide to give her a ride and provide her with a hotel room. Never mind the story, though, because that's the very, very, very simplified version of it and it actually doesn't make any sense whatsoever as it plays out.
Writer-director Perkins surrounds his movie with all the creepy atmosphere that's needed to make a solid horror film. Meanwhile, however, he seems to forget that characters worth caring about and a story to get invested in are also completely necessary to be effective. If there's nothing to follow along with and no character who I can identify with, there's not much to hold my interest. Scene after scene, I wanted to lean over to someone and ask "What's going on here? What is this supposed to mean?" There's nothing significant about any of this. Yes, it looks nice and it has creepy sounds, but that means absolutely nothing when I'm left checking my watch every few minutes.
The story builds to a conclusion that I suppose is meant to be a big, breath taking reveal. However, Perkins makes the fatal mistake of dropping not so subtle hints into the film. Anyone who was even halfway paying attention will have already guessed what the big twist is and will have already stopped caring.
Perkins clearly has some talent behind the camera. He's one of those guys who you've seen in a movie if you've watched a movie from the past couple of decades. He has learned the basics of how to make a film. Now he just has to find the rhythm to go along with it and maybe hire someone else to write his screenplay.
(2 out of 5 Stars, The film is rated R for brutal bloody violence and brief strong language)
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