Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on the new portable.
There is a trend in horror movies that perhaps has been around for longer than I’ve been aware of it. I’ve noticed it several times in the past, and someone is welcome to bring up a movie from before the last decade that follows this pattern, but it’s one I’ve really only noticed in movies from the past 10 years or so. That trend or common element is a movie that spends about two acts developing an atmosphere of dread or at least something disturbing and then going completely off the rails bonkers in the third act. Starry Eyes did this, as did Kill List and Honeymoon. I’m not specifically talking about a plot twist—I’m talking about a movie building up to something that turns out to be fully insane. That’s exactly what I experienced with The Blackcoat’s Daughter.
This isn’t to say that there isn’t a twist in this movie; there is, and it’s a big one. Naturally, this means that I won’t be spoiling it when we get there. The movie has three interweaving storylines. Two of these are clearly entwined, while the third connects with the others eventually. More or less, we figure that it’s got to be connected in some way because it’s a part of the same movie.
