6.8 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Two girls must battle a mysterious evil force when they get left behind at their boarding school over winter break.
Starring: Emma Roberts, Kiernan Shipka, James Remar, Lauren Holly, Lucy BoyntonHorror | 100% |
Psychological thriller | 17% |
Mystery | 13% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.84:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English SDH, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
UV digital copy
DVD copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (locked)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Note: It’s virtually impossible to discuss The Blackcoat’s Daughter without at least hinting at plot points that the more
perspicacious
reader may be able to glean “spoiler” material from, so anyone wanting to come to this film “cold” (no pun intended, given its original title,
February), is encouraged to skip down to the technical portions of the review, below. (The fact that I also potentially spoil both
Psycho and The Sixth Sense, with at least a chance at spoiling Mulholland Dr., may also be relevant to whether proceeding
with the main body of the review is advisable, and, yes, this is said with tongue planted firmly in cheek.)
Anthony Perkins will probably forever be best remembered as a certain (shall we say) confused character (or characters, as the
case
may be) in Alfred Hitchcock’s immortal Psycho, wielding a bloody
knife in one of the most memorable and shocking murder scenes ever caught on celluloid. Anthony’s son Oz is on hand as the writer and director
of
The Blackcoat’s Daughter, another film that offers a blurred line between various characters, not to mention a copious amount of knife
wielding and blood letting. In doing some background research in preparation for the writing of this review, I was actually downright surprised to
read
that The Blackcoat’s Daughter had evidently engendered all sorts of head scratching as to what exactly was going on in its (to me,
anyway)
pretty straightforward (if twisty) narrative, a surprise that was only furthered by the fact that I personally feel this film’s poster suggests
way
too
much in terms of what actually turns out to be the main plot conceit. As I’ve detailed in various other reviews, I do tend to be a “twist guesser”,
and
as such I had a hunch that the three characters focused on in this film were perhaps more intrinsically linked than might seem to be the case on
the
surface (I’m struggling not to posit any out and out spoiler material, but, again, forewarned is forearmed), and as confusing as some viewers
evidently found The Blackcoat’s Daughter to be, inveterate thriller fans who have relished one actor playing multiple parts (as with
Anthony
Perkins in Psycho) or even more than one performer (at least arguably) playing the same part (as in David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr., a film whose setup may have provided at
least
some of the inspiration for Perkins’ screenplay), will probably have a leg up at overcoming both the late stage “reveal” in this film as well as in
understanding an
ending
that is
memorable if opaque.
The Blackcoat's Daughter is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.84:1. Shot digitally with the Red Epic (according to the IMDb), the film boasts a generally well detailed image when lighting regimens allow. As can clearly be seen in many of the screenshots accompanying this review, Perkins and cinematographer Julie Kirkwood favor rather dark environments quite a bit of the time, something that of course ups the anxiety level but which understandably tends to work against fine detail levels. Some grading has been employed, to rather interesting effect at times, with a largely desaturated frame having one or two elements that still retain a bit of vivid hue. Perkins and Kirkwood also offer some at least somewhat unusual framings at time, with the supposed focal element drifting off the perimeter of the frame (see screenshot 6 for one example). Without much in the way of supplementary material and without an extended running time, The Blackcoat's Daughter resides quite comforably on a BD-25 without any noticeable compression anomalies.
While The Blackcoat's Daughter's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track provides some nice immersion courtesy of nicely directional ambient environmental effects, it (commendably to my ears) doesn't really exploit startle effects, something that may make it less sonically showy than tends to be the case with many horror outings. Another son of Anthony Perkins, Oz's little brother Elvis, contributes the fairly astringent score, one which also provides consistent surround activity. Dialogue and effects are both rendered clearly on this problem free track.
I frankly don't think I'm that good of a "twist guesser" (though I had the "secret" of The Sixth Sense worked out within about a nanosecond of the setup), but The Blackcoat's Daughter just struck me as overly obvious, something that was evidently not shared by a number of people who saw the film theatrically and were apparently quite confused by it. Even if you do guess the ostensible "twist", the mood of this film is eerily effective and establishes the clear fact that Osgood Perkins has a perhaps genetic eye for horror. Technical merits are very good, and with caveats noted, The Blackcoat's Daughter comes Recommended.
2016
60th Anniversary Edition
1960
2016
2009
2016
2018
La Residencia / The Boarding School
1969
2013
2013
2019
Extended Director's Cut
2018
2018
2001
2012
2003
1986
2018
2018
2012
Director's Cut
1963