The Blackcoat’s Daughter spins a devilish tale with atmospheric mastery.

• Scare factor: ★★★★☆
• Surreal factor: ★★★★☆
• Gruesome factor: ★★★★☆
• Originality factor: ★★★★★
• Entertainment factor: ★★★★★

The Blackcoat’s Daughter or February is a supernatural psychological horror movie that has a creative structure to weave the tales of three different young women into a tale of terror. It has a strong focus on atmosphere and the three characters are intertwined in a beautifully crafted way. It’s a story that is highly visceral in nature and speaks to the viewer on an emotional level. Although it’s an elusive tale, it’s not too difficult to grasp. The different storylines take the viewer on this mystical journey of horror and poetic imagery. 

While this film is also a mystery and the plot is connected to this mystery in a paramount way, it’s wise to see this film without much knowing about it. In this article there are only minor spoilers but it reveales nothing about the final plot. It stars Emma Roberts, Kiernan Shipka, Lucy Boynton. Directed and written by Osgood Perkins.

Duration 1h 33m

Plot

When the winter vacation at Bramford a boarding school for girls is nearing, Kat (Katherine), a junior, is counting the days until her parents are going to pick her up. But a nightmare that feels like a vision tells her that her parents are dead. When they don’t show up she fears the worst and has to stay a few more days until the school has been able to contact them. 

Rose a senior is also staying because she told her parents to pick her up on Friday because she’s afraid she’s pregnant and wants to discuss it with her boyfriend and maybe take care of the situation first. 

In the meantime Joan a young woman is on her way to Bramford for unknown reasons, but she has recently escaped a mental institution. She is given a ride by a nice man Bill who wants to help her but his wife Linda is reluctant to take Joan with them. 

As Friday approaches there seems to be something wrong with Kat and it becomes clear how the three young women are connected. 

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Short Review

The Blackcoat’s Daughter has a very intriguing plot that unravels the mystery slowly but in a very engrossing way. The film is divided into separate parts that tells the story of each girl. It doesn’t feel like separate parts though. They are intertwined and the stories of the the three young women are woven into the big narrative in a natural way. The stories are told through the perspectives of the three women. Each perspective lifts a tip of the veil and adds a piece of the puzzle that is going to be unraveled in Kat’s segment. It starts with Rose, then Joan and finally it reveals Kat’s perspective of the strange events. 

With a bleak atmosphere and an almost serene tone the story feels very elusive. It’s a story that isn’t told in a chronological way, showing us some events that we have already seen but now from another perspective that will explain what happened. It’s a clever structure that only becomes apparent later on. 

The cinematography is absolutely gorgeous and adds to the intangible vibe. The music is sporadically present but there’s more emphasis on sound effects to enhance the atmosphere. These effects are intrusive in a good way but also can be very subtle. The storytelling itself is very subtle. It’s detailed and crisp and the dark entity is only a shape that creates an eerie feeling of discomfort and strangeness. The intimate take on the three young women feels very up close but in a way also very distant. They all are elusive in their own way.

It’s a very elusive film altogether. Everything about it creates an ethereal atmosphere, poetic but instead of heavenly it is peacefully dark and devilish. That is even more enhanced in the final scene that is of astounding intensity. It is introvert, sensitive and subdued in emotions that are highly intense. It captures the whole vibe of the film and expresses a masterfully crafted disturbing tale of horror. It is made of a lot of negative space in visuals but also negative space in sound. By not including the whole image of what’s going on in a scene in visuals or in sounds, it focuses on that what we do see or hear, making it even more pronounced. 

The horror itself is very subtle and relies on an eerie, disturbing atmosphere that feels very strange, instead of using jump scares. While there are some subtle great scenes that feel very uncomfortable regarding Kat, it’s not until the end that the physical horror appears to cause bloody and gruesome mayhem. It’s violent and bloody and very harsh. This is also done in a very detached way to make it even more unnerving. 

Although the story might be hard to grasp sometimes, the ending and especially when the story is told from Kat’s perspective explains and elaborates in visual shots what was happening but not the why. But overall it’s a film that is very visceral in nature and doesn’t need much explaining. 

The Blackcoat’s Daughter speaks to the audience on an emotional level with few dialogue but with beautiful imagery and visuals and shows us the story about these three young women by fragmented scenes and actions.