Humans are tough and are always ready to tackle anything that comes their way. We’ve fought wars, stormed castles, and achieved the unimaginable. But what happens when you’re up against something invisible, something you can’t even see but is hell-bent on draining you of your life? That’s the eerie ambiance you get from Oz Perkins’ 2017 film, “The Blackcoat’s Daughter,” starring Emma Roberts, Kiernan Shipka, Lucy Boynton, James Remar, and Emma Holzer. The movie unfolds in three timelines. The first two focus on Rose and Kat, while the final part reveals Joan’s story. This movie serves up a horror story that will keep you on the edge of your seat and blends suspense and mystery in a way that only Perkins can deliver.
The Blackcoat’s Daughter (2007) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
Who are Kat & Rose?
The film takes place at the prestigious Bramford Academy, a top-notch boarding school in New York where wealthy parents send their kids for a first-class education. Every February, parents come to take their kids away for a week-long break. This time, the school is almost deserted, except for two students, Kat and Rose, who have stayed behind for their own reasons. Kat is a freshman, while Rose is a senior at Bramford Academy.
Rose hasn’t been feeling well lately because of constant headaches and fatigue. She suspects she might be pregnant but is unsure whether to tell her boyfriend. Rose worries that if her parents find out, they’ll be furious and might even pull her out of school. So, she decides to lie to them about the holiday dates to buy some time. As for freshman Kat, she’s haunted by a terrible dream one night where she sees her parents dying in a car crash. When the day comes for parents to pick up their kids, Kat’s parents don’t show. The school principal, Mr. Gordon, tries to contact them but can’t get through. He then asks Rose to look after Kat until her parents arrive.
What happens at Bramford Academy?
Rose is supposed to look after Kat, but she’s not interested in being a babysitter. Instead, she’s planning to sneak out and meet her boyfriend, deciding to get an abortion. When Rose returns, she finds Kat in the school’s basement, acting weird and creepy, like she’s kneeling before something invisible. When Rose brings Kat inside, Kat tells her that her parents are never coming because they’ve died. As the night goes on, Kat is seen shaking under the sheets as if she’s being possessed.
Things quickly go downhill from here. Kat starts acting like she’s completely devoid of emotions, always talking about someone she calls “He.” She even refuses to say grace at breakfast, and when a nun calls her out, Kat vomits all over the table. That afternoon, Mr. Gordon arrives at the school with the police, only to find the place covered in blood stains and decapitated bodies of Rose and the two nuns.
What really went down at Bramford Academy?
A few days before the massacre, Kat received a mysterious call from an entity. The voice told her that her parents were dead and commanded her to kill everyone at the school. Since that day, Kat’s behavior has become increasingly erratic. That afternoon, she ended up killing the two nuns. Rose wasn’t spared either—Kat not only killed her but also beheaded her. Later that day, Mr. Gordon and the police found Kat in the school’s basement.
Horrified by what she had done, Kat was arrested. After a mental evaluation, she was sent to a psychiatric hospital. There, a priest performs an exorcism, and Kat’s connection with the invisible entity is broken. But it is possible there was never a demon at all. Kat might have just imagined it to cope with her loneliness and despair. Her fragile mental state could have driven her to do terrible things, not some supernatural force.
The Blackcoat’s Daughter (2007) Movie Ending Explained:
Who is Joan, and Why Did She Kill Bill and Linda?
This all goes down nine years after the Bramford massacre. In the dead of night, a mysterious girl appears at a bus stop. Her body language, needle marks, and medical tapes on her wrists hint that she was in a mental institution. A kind middle-aged man named Bill offers her a ride to Portsmith. Joan hesitates at first, but when she learns that Bill is traveling with his wife, she agrees to the ride.
On the way, they stop at a motel, where Bill reveals that he’s heading to Bramford, a school where his daughter used to study. Tragically, she died under mysterious circumstances. Bill helped Joan because she reminded him of his daughter, who died nine years ago. Every year around this time, Bill and his wife, Linda, visit Bramford to remember her. Bill shows Joan a picture of her, and it’s revealed that his daughter was none other than Rose, the girl who lost her life at Bramford.
As for the other girl, Joan isn’t her real name, and she’s actually Katherine (Kat), who was institutionalized in a mental asylum. She’s the same person who killed Rose and the two nuns and arranged their heads as an offering to the devil. As they drive along at night, Kate motions for the pair to move over to the shoulder. When the vehicle comes to a halt, Kate murders the couple by stabbing them in their backs.
So why is Kat so desperate to return to Bramford? It turns out that Kat wants to summon the devil again and hopes to reunite with him. After her parents died, Kat was left feeling incredibly lonely, and that’s when the demon chose her. Under the demon’s influence, she killed everyone, but she was freed from its grip after a priest performed an exorcism. Now, Kat’s only reason for coming back to Bramford is to summon the demon once more. That’s why she beheaded Linda and Bill, hoping their heads would be a worthy offering to the demon and that he’d make contact with her. Unfortunately, the demon doesn’t show up, leaving Kat alone and crying in the boiler room.
The Blackcoat’s Daughter (2017) Movie Themes Analyzed:
“The Blackcoat’s Daughter” is about isolation and the darkness that can creep in when you’re alone. We have two main characters, Kat and Rose, stuck in a remote boarding school during winter break. Kat, who’s already dealing with some serious personal demons, starts to break down mentally. Her isolation in the empty school becomes the breeding ground for her inner fears and the literal evil that’s present in the school’s basement. Rose, on the other hand, is dealing with her own issues, like her unwanted pregnancy and also a sense of detachment from her life.
When she chooses to abort the baby and lie to her parents, it shows how people can be led to do extreme things when they’re pushed to their limits. On a different note, the movie uses the empty school and its vacant halls to multiply these feelings of being lost and desperate.
There is also the overarching theme of evil’s subtlety. It’s not always in your face but lurks in the corners and feeds off one’s vulnerability. Kat’s mental breakdown and her drastic actions to kill her own friends show how it preys on weakness and isolation. In the end, the film wraps its themes with a scene where being alone isn’t just physically isolating but mentally and emotionally draining. Kat ends up taking more innocent lives to reunite with the evil entity, but it doesn’t come, leaving her alone.
