The Blackcoat’s Daughter (2017)

Directed by Osgood Perkins. Starring Kiernan Shipka, Emma Roberts, Lucy Boynton, James Remar, Lauren Holly. [R]

Students Shipka and Boynton are left alone at their boarding school over a holiday break while a third girl (Roberts) is heading their way after accepting a ride from a couple of enigmatic Good Samaritans (Remar, Holly), but with so much critical information being withheld, it’s no secret that not all is what it seems in this strangely unsettling scenario. Anemic, murky slow-burn horror film doesn’t have a plot so much as just a chronologically-fractured series of mood piece scenes, Julie Kirkwood’s shadow-soaked photography an unsatisfying substitute for actual dread. Even without the careless clue found in the promotional materials, the film’s climactic revelation is neither surprising nor galvanizing, despite Roberts’ best efforts to express despair (she just misses her old friend so much…). At least we’re spared cheap jump scares and exposition dumps on the way to the payoff. Directorial debut for Perkins (son of Anthony), even though it was not the first of his efforts to get a wide release (that would be I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House)—this one initially played at the 2015 Toronto Film Festival as February, but was then delayed for almost two years before getting a better title and a limited theatrical run.

49/100