VOD Review: The Blackcoat's Daughter (2016)

"Maybe the best Genre movie that we've seen all year."

(aka February.)

Release Date: TBA.

Country: USA.

Rating: R.

Written by: Oz Perkins.

Directed by: Oz Perkins.

Starring: Kiernan Shipka, Emma Roberts, Lucy Boynton, James Remar, and Lauren Holly.



Every year, there's one or two Horror movies that everyone hails as being "transcendent" or "genre changing," or something to that effect. Whatever the tag-line that gets attached to them, movies like It Follows, The Babadook, Cabin in the Woods, You're Next, and We Are Still Here end up being critical darlings, and find themselves on everyone's Must See list.



So far this year, the critical darlings seem to be The Witch, Green Room, and The Invitation. All three are great flicks in their own right, and they each deliver their own brand of chills, but I'm going to throw The Blackcoat's Daughter into that mix and say that it's every bit as good as those other movies. In fact, it very well could be better.



*The Blackcoat's Daughter (February) was supposed to be released today as an exclusive on DirecTV. It's not on DirectTV, and there has been absolutely no promotion or mention of the release by A24 (its distribution company), DirecTV, or on the film's Twitter or Facebook pages, so at this point we have to assume that its release date has been moved. IMDB has it listed as coming out on Sept. 30th in the U.S., so maybe we'll see it some time this fall. We've been sitting on the review since two of us caught a screening at the CCFF back in late May (because I wanted it to coincide with it's DirecTV release), but there's no point in waiting until September to post it.

It's hard to talk about The Blackcoat's Daughter (formerly titled February), without ruining it for the uninitiated, so we're going to have to be as vague as possible here.



This is a movie about three girls, two of whom are stranded at their prep school over winter break, and one who is desperately trying to get to the school herself. One of the stranded girls, Kat, fears her parents dead, and withdraws inward to cope; while the other, Rose, is terrified that she might be pregnant, and is even more terrified oh how creepy Kat is. As for the girl who is making her way toward Bramford Prep, Joan, well she's obviously been through something traumatic, and yet she stays focused on her goal.



It's also about Satan, who appears as a shadowy bunny-like figure, intent on possessing one (or more) of the girl's souls.



I know that basically tells you nothing, but that's good. You need to see this one as uninformed as possible. In fact, don't even watch the trailer if you can help it. 

WHO WAS PHONE?

The Blackcoat's Daughter is a slow-burn Supernatural Thriller that took us to places that we didn't expect. I know that sounds generic as hell, and the term slow-burn is used far too often these days to describe slow and boring movies, but this one really had it's own quiet, eerie thing going on, and it left one hell of an impression on us.



The Blackcoat's Daughter is as much about loss as it is anything else, and the way that it handles the subject is superb. The movie twists and turns around its three main characters (who are all related in some obscure way) in quiet fashion, and brings them all together in the end in pretty shocking, and dare we say fresh, way. I'd really love to talk about that ending, and what it meant for the movie as a whole, but it would kill the entire thing, and it would be a shame for you to not experience that build-up and resolution for yourselves.



I guess it's safe to say that loss is the key word here; some of it creepy, all of it tragic.

"NO I HAVEN'T CHECKED THE CHILDREN. WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?"

It was interesting how they handled Satan in this movie too (it could have been a plain old Demon, but we got the strong sense that it was Old Scratch himself.) His presence and appearance was all very shadowy and ambiguous, as if he were more of a feeling or ideal than an actual physical being. Oh, he was there at times, but it's as if his presence was a shadow that was always draped across everything and everyone, whether you could see him or not.



This is director Oz Perkins' debut feature behind the camera, and it's about as impressive as a first movie can be. Horror is obviously in his blood (he's the son of Norman Bates himself, Anthony Perkins), and If this is the type of thing that we can expect from him as his career moves forward, which it most certainly will, then we're in for some good times.



I'm not sure who truly stole the show in this one; Kiernan Shipka or Emma Roberts. Both ladies played their tortured parts equally well, and their performances took an already great movie to the next level. Lucy Boynton was on top of her game too, even if her character wasn't quite as prevalent. Even Lauren Holly and James Remar seemed to dig deep for this one, although with James Remar being one of the best character actors ever, that's really no surprise.

THIS IS NO TIME TO BE PLAYING BLOODY MARY!

So was the school used for Satanic Rituals, or was that just a rumor started by the kids? Were the nuns Satan's Whores? Was it all in someone's head? Who was phone?!?

SHE'S COME A LONG WAY SINCE MAD MEN.

What the hell is a Blackcoat, and who in the hell was his daughter?

WAS IT HER?

It might not show up until the end, but when it gets there, the gore is solid.

IT'S ONLY A HAND WOUND. RUN!

No nudity in this one, but Emma Roberts does appear in a towel, if that's your kick.

CREEPY, NOT SEXY.

A teenager in love is a fierce creature. So is Satan.

OH, SHE KNOWS. SHE KNOWS.

The Blackcoat's Daughter isn't a perfect movie, and it's probably not going to garner as big of an audience as The Witch did earlier this year, but it's an excellent film and one of the best possession flicks that we've ever seen. Very few movies these days stay with us as long (and as powerfully) as did this one, and we can't wait to watch it again to further dissect it. 



This was a near-perfect movie-watching experience for us, and you should absoloutly check it out when you get the chance.



A



The Blackcoat's Daughter was originally scheduled to be in limited theaters and on DirecTV now, but it looks as if its release has been delayed. We'll keep you posted.

Emma Roberts is fast becoming one of our favorite Scream Queens, pun intended.

VOD Review: Satanic (2016)

"Well, that was underwhelming."

(aka Why?)

Release Date: July 1st.

Country: USA.

Rating: R.

Written by: Anthony Jaswinski.

Directed by: Jeffrey G. Hunt.

Starring: Sarah Hyland, Steven Krueger, Justin Chon, Clara Mamet, and Sophie Dalah.



Satanic was originally supposed to come out last August, but was pushed back nearly a year. Now, movies get delayed all the time, and that doesn't mean that they're complete shit just because they do, but having seen this generic shocker, we're pretty sure that it sat on the shelf for so long because they knew it just wasn't that good. Shocker, I know.

Five friends on Spring Break are heading to Coachella, but the plan is to stop off in LA first for two days of occult sightseeing, because it sounds much better than shitty Coachella does. They rent room 204 at The Flower Hotel, where some girl named Lainey Gore slit her throat for Satan, and proceed to try and contact her via Parker Bros. Ouija Board.

"KEEP TRYING, MORTICIA, YOU'VE ALMOST GOT IT!"

As if that isn't edgelord enough of them, they head over to the local Satanic church to take selfies; visit the scene of the Manson Murders, to take selfies; and visit a local Satanic thrift shop, where they act like assholes to the dude who works there, and almost get stabbed for their efforts. Later that night, after deciding that all of this isn't quite enough, they follow the dude from the Satan shop out into the boonies to a ramshackle cabin and interrupt the Satanic Sacrifice party that he and his 20 closest, creepiest friends are having, because the guy was an asshole, and he's got to be taught a lesson!



Had everyone died right then, as a sort of "this is what you get for being retarded" kind of lesson, we'd have probably given this movie a B+.

DON'T DO IT, MAN, SHE'S TOO HOT TO KILL!

But no, it doesn't end there. They girl that they "saved" from being sacrificed contacts them (via the cellphone that one of them left behind while escaping the Satanists), comes to hang with them in Lainey Gore's room, leads them in a group ritual, and then proceeds to slit her throat with the parting words of "I'll see you soon." That's when things truly get Satanic, as the disposable teens are haunted and hunted down by some ghostly force that begins killing them off, one by one.



Finally.

YEAH, US TOO.

This could have been a good movie. It was written by the guy who write The Shallows (which we really liked), so we know he has it in him to construct a solid story; and it was directed by a guy who has directed a ton of hours worth of TV, so we're not sure what went so wrong here. Come to think of it, this movie played like an over-long episode of some teen-friendly CW show, so maybe it was generic by design? If so, then kudos to all involved.



The story itself isn't all that bad; it's the typical "Idiot teens get stalked and slashed" kind of story, and those can be entertaining enough, even if most of them are generic as hell. Satanic though, doesn't do what most Teen Terror flicks do to make themselves tolerable, which is show a bunch of kids getting naked and getting killed in horrific ways. When people die in this movie (which save for one, doesn't happen until the last 20 minutes or so), we see nothing. One of them goes into a port-a-potty, and disappears; another goes off alone, only to show up dead later; yet another simply disappears; and the Final Girl, which you can probably guess is Sarah Hyland's character... well she gets to be a part of a cheesy twist that leads to an ending that is open to interpretation. 



If we have to sit through a movie with a half-assed script that is populated by unlikable, generic characters, at least give us some blood & gore to make it all worthwhile. Visceral thrills, you know?



While the story isn't that great to begin with, it's really the characters that make it such a painful watch. All Sarah Hyland's Chloe really does throughout the whole thing is scream, and she's the best of them; Elise, her cousin, is one of those goth posers who tries to act smarter than she is, and is way too-creepy-for-you, but ends up being tits on a bull when the actually Supernatural shit starts to go down; David is a dude-bro turn who whines the whole time about how lame his girlfriend's goth poser friends are, and about how bad he wants to go to Coachella, which should tell you everything you need to know about him; and Seth, the asshole, needs-to-catch-a-smack-in-the-mouth hipster, is too cool for everyone, has respect for nothing, and spends the entire movie making us ask "How does this tool have friends, let alone a girl who actually likes him?"



Sophie Dalah's crazy Satanist chick was the best character in the movie, and she basically existed as a plot device. The girl out-acted everyone.

DON'T WORRY, GIRL, YOU'VE STILL GOT MODERN FAMILY...

The throat-slitting part was pretty cool, but aside from that, we get very little in the way of gore, unless you count a pool full of CGI birds and blood, which you shouldn't.

YOU CAN'T SAY THAT SHE'S NOT COMMITTED.

Sophie Dalah gets mostly naked and kisses some girls, but that's it. 

YES, YOU WERE THE BEST PART OF THE MOVIE.

This movie really could have been a decent B-Grade Supernatural flick had the characters not been so annoying, and had they, you know, actually shown the killings happen on-screen, but as it stands, it's a bit of a disappointing mess. You can give Satanic a rent of you want to, but waiting until it hits Netflix might be the best was to view this clunker.



D



Satanic is available now on VOD, as well as in limited theaters.

The girls of Satanic.