Osgood Perkins' The Blackcoat's Daughter is an occasionally creepy and interesting horror film that evaporates towards its conclusion. As in his later films, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House and Gretel & Hansel, Perkins is good at establishing spooky atmospherics, but weak at integrating milieu with plot. The plot concerns two students stranded at their all girl boarding school waiting for their parents to pick them up for break. One of the girls is possessed by a mysterious force and proceeds to wreak havoc. Perkins is able to fashion a foreboding presence out of anonymous institutions be they hospitals, motel rooms or schools. He gets a pair of striking performances from James Remar and Lucy Boynton and lifts the rest of a variously talented cast towards competency. Unfortunately, the plot is a sub Exorcist retread. The film ends with a whimper instead of a bang and all of the unsettling preliminaries are for naught.
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