Claire Foy as Sawyer Valentini Joshua Leonard as David Jay Pharoah as Nate Amy Irving as Angelina Valentini Juno Temple as Violet
Release Date
2018
Language(s)
English
Running Time
98 minutes
This is a movie that deserves to be talked about in the same vein asGet Outwhen it comes to well done social-commentary horror movies. While Peele’s debut dealt with race, Soderbergh’s story tackles the mental health industry, the #MeToo movement, incel culture, and the effects of a society that amps up paranoia while blaming you for feeling scared. Watching these themes intersect is what makes the movie so distinct and memorable.
The story follows Sawyer Valenti, a women trying to get her life back on track after a harrowing series of run-ins with a serial stalker. After she’s committed to a mental facility, she finds herself trying to find a way out and to deal with the possibility that her stalker is in the institution with her. Soderbergh does a great job at portraying the horrors of being a women in the world. Sawyer deals with snide remarks at the workplace, lack of respect during cordial interactions, constant gaslighting, and a severe lack of respect. She’s simultaneously taught to handle situations with a certain fear and sense of uneasiness and is disrespected for those qualities. It’s frustrating to watch her constantly undermined and thwarted by a system that seems to make it impossible for her to ever win.
What makes the story so much more interesting is the presence of well-rounded and interesting side characters. Angelina is Sawyer’s fierce mother and is on her daughter’s side, trying to help her out. Nate is a resourceful and interesting kind-of friend on the side. Watching him interact with and teach Sawyer the rules of the land is fun, and their burgeoning friendship is pulled off convincingly. The other patients at the facility are handled with respect. This isn’t a mental patients scary movie. In fact, the movie actively argues the opposite. It’s clear that Soderbergh thinks that the mental health industry is almost irredeemable and actively serves to trap everyday people in a system to suck them dry of their money. The patients reflect this. They’re all “off” but they’re not crazy. They’re social, have codes of conduct, and want to interact.
Every major performance is also great. Foy understands the motivations that drive her character and makes her sometimes questionable actions feel believable. The fear, the desperation, the indignation, the sheer lack of energy at having to deal with any more nonsense. You can feel her emotions through the way she moves her body across the screen. Pharoah is amazing in his side role and adds a lot of levity to the otherwise tense movie. He plays well off Foy and the scenes they have talking to each other are among my favorite as a result.
So if you haven’t heard already, this movie was shot exclusively on an iPhone 7 Plus. Soderbergh has talked a lot about how he’s astounded with the results of the movie. I went in to the movie because I heard it was only shot on a cell phone and I was curious at how it’d turn out. I think Soderbergh’s experiment proved mixed results. There are a lot of great shots and sequences, but they never feel as powerful as they should because the iPhone can’t capture the light at all. There’s very little contrast in dark scenes, so you almost start praying for more stuff to occur in the light, just so you know for sure what’s happening. The movie looks a lot more grimy and worn out. I personally liked it, because I thought it fight with the movie and psyche of the characters but if you want something that looks clean, look elsewhere. I didn’t think the movie looked bad per say. I just think that this movie deserved better because of how good the story and characters are.
Plot wise, I don’t share a lot of the same criticisms I’ve seen a lot of other reviews bring up. I think a lot of the sequences in the movie are justified or are done for very distinctive purposes. That being said, there’s only two plot elements that comes up in the third act that feel a bit too absurd. I thought the movie was going to be more nuanced/ambiguous with one of these ideas and it isn’t which made me pretty sad. It’s not that the movie is bad , but it feels like what could’ve been a genuine horror masterpiece is only pretty good instead. However, I can honestly say watching this inspired me. If something this great can be made with an iPhone camera, then there’s only room for improvement. Any of us can make a movie, and I applaud a bigger director for doing this. (Yes I know Tangerine exists. I watched it later and I highly recommend it for people who want to see the true places the medium can go).
Report Card
TLDR
Unsane is a horror movie about the everyday scenarios women have to go through and does a great job at fairly demonstrating that struggle. The film’s nuanced takes on incel culture, #MeToo tenets, and the mental health industry make it one of the most interesting movies of recent times. Thought it stumbles in some places, I can’t help but appreciate the effort.
The movie being shot on an iPhone 7 may upset some people. The movie is grainy and lighting isn’t that great, but you won’t notice as much when you’re lost in the story.
Rating
9.1/10
Grade
A
Go to Page 2 to view this review’s progress report .
Madeline Brewer as Alice Ackerman/Lola_Lola Patch Darragh as Arnold/TinkerBoy Michael Dempsey as Barney
Release Date
2018
Language(s)
English
Running Time
95 minutes
I”ll be the first to admit that I thought this movie would be a crapshoot going in. I didn’t see any reviews or anything. I just thought the description sounded interesting enough to warrant a watch . A cam girl psychological horror? Even if it wasn’t that great at least it’d be something new. Man oh man, did I underestimate what I was getting into. From the very first scene, Goldhaber lets you know that this isn’t some trendy social media cash grab movie like Friend Request. Instead it’s a deep look into the horrors of internet privacy and security and the ways we’ve become almost defined by our digital personas.
The movie follows Alice Ackerman, more popularly known by her online persona, Lola_Lola. She’s a camstar who’s been rising through the ranks and is finally on the cusp of making the top 50 most popular content creators. However, just as things start to look promising, Alice notices that her account has been hacked by a girl who looks exactly like her. This clone “Lola” acts,looks, and feels the part and Alice is forced to navigate a harrowing situation with little to no support given the nature of the occupation. The set up is even scarier when you take into account the rise of things like deep fake technology. The movie isn’t based on real events, but I wouldn’t be so sure of that in a decade or two.
This is a movie that treats its subject matter with serious respect. The camgirls that are portrayed are real human beings. They’re smart and treat their source of income like any other working adult would do. Screenplay author Isa Mazzei needs to be commended for creating a nuanced, balanced look into the lives of a group that’s constantly judged but never given a fair shake at presenting their own stories. Likewise, every single person who knows of Alice and her occupation treats her differently. Yes, there’s slut shaming and vicious judgement, but there’s also acceptance and solidarity. It keeps the movie from feeling preachy, and helps focus attention on the plot, so the themes come off natural.
The discussion at hand is broad and touches on a lot of different topics that come together in interesting and horrifying ways. After Alice has her channel taken, she attempts to use different legal channels but never receives a proper response. It’s reflective of the way the law and corporations receive social buy in under the idea that regulative channels will properly do their job, but if people are willing to keep in line with sub-par service, then what’s the point of fixing anything? Interests are transient and there’s a quick fix for any kind of entertainment if you’re willing to look for it and have the capital to ensure that it happens the way you want. You don’t need to fix the system. You just need money to navigate it.
This idea is only expanded by the streamer/anonymous chatroom setting the story takes place in. Yes anonymity and ease of streaming allows content creators to reach out to their expanding audiences more often, but it comes at the cost of putting oneself out there. People give money to those do what they want, and given the ability of anyone to be a content creator, newer entrants have to constantly one up themselves and their peers. You never know who’s giving you the money or why they’re doing it. The audience never has to share and the information asymmetry can lead to some pretty horrendous situations. In some cases, it means receiving money to participate in awful activities. When a creator gives in, the result generates more depraved behavior because suddenly everything has a relative price point. It’s a vicious feed back loop that culminates in the virtual erasure of people. Cam girls aren’t people . They’re consumable objects . It’s just a question of whether or not the audience wants to hurt and/or sexualize them.
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TLDR
CAM is a dark look into the tumultuous, and highly dangerous lives of cam girls. In a world where relevance equals money and money equals livelihood, people are forced constantly escalate their behavior to make ends meet. In the cam girl industry, that escalation comes with serious, sometimes horrifying costs. If you’re looking for a horror movie that effectively uses social media at the heart of its scares, look no further than CAM. It’s one of the best.
Rating
9.1/10
Grade
A
Go to Page 2 for the spoiler discussion. Go to Page 3 to view this review’s progress report .
Carla Gugino as Jessica Chiara Aurelia as Young Jessica Bruce Greenwood as Gerald Henry Thomas as Tom Kate Siegel as Sally Carel Struycken as Moonlight Man
Release Date
2017
Language(s)
English
Running Time
103 minutes
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again- Mike Flanagan is one of the best horror directors in the game right now and this adaptationis the some of the best proof. Gerald’s Game is one of the few King stories I’ve read so when I saw Flangan was directing, I was intrigued in seeing how he’d adapt the unconventional narrative style the story uses. Flanagan and Jeff Howard both deserve applause for synthesizing the ideas of the novel in a suspenseful and easy to digest way.
The story follows a couple, Gerald and Jessica, as they go off on a trip to rekindle the spark in their marriage. After handcuffing Jessica to the bed and downing a few viagra, Gerald tries to initiate some rape-play which Jessica finds too disturbing to continue anymore. After she rejects his advances, he dies suddenly of a heart attack and she finds herself trapped in an abandoned house, handcuffed to a bed, and completely alone. The initial build-up to all of this is handled with an great eye for detail. Issues that come to plague Jessica in her struggle to survive are set up early on, so subsequent reveals and twists feel sweet and satisfying.
The story primarily takes place through a series of conversations Jessica has with projections of her subconscious. Representations of herself, her late husband, traumatic memories of her family and the situation that they placed her in, and nightmare scenarios plague her as she attempts to make out what’s real and what’s relevant to keeping her alive. As Jessica struggles to survive, she’s forced to navigate her trauma and the way she’s attempted to handle it throughout her life. Her story goes to dark places and if is presented with the respect and seriousness it deserves. There are hard scenes to watch, but they’re never exploitative or voyeuristic. They exist to remind you of the uncomfortable truth, but aren’t visceral or provocative outside of that. The deplorable nature of the act is horrifying enough.
A lot of the movie rides on Carla Gugino’s performance. She’s the protagonist and has to play a women who goes through some heartbreaking and emotionally complex realizations about herself and the way she’s dealt with deep seated trauma. Watching the layers of herself slowly fade away to the core of who she is is amazing, and you can feel the intensity of her desire to get to heart of what ails her. Gugino also talks to herself for most of the movie, but breathes life into the conversation so you always feel like something’s going on. The entire movie is her talking to projections of her subconscious, one of the avatars being her subconcious personified as a clone of herself. She manages to be just as convincing talking to herself ( aka nothing in the room) as she does when she talks to Gerald. It’s a testament to how well she threw herself into the role.
I love this movie because I never thought it would be something that could be adapted (a fairly common sentiment). The way that the ideas and discussions are streamlined into easy to follow story-lines gives the movie a more complete and tight feeling. Rarely do I like a movie for than a book, but this is one of those rare exceptions. The adaptation gives Jessica far more agency, which is important because the heart of the movie is learning how to deal with trauma. More agency means more ability to introspectively act and engage in a more thorough catharsis. Her journey through her trauma is moving and never comes at the cost of the more exciting elements of the story. The hard to imagine gory scene from the novel makes its way here and is just as hard to watch. It all just comes to demonstrate how well the adaptation understood the source material and the strengths of a film over a book. It only takes what it needs and does its best to cover the sentiments of what it doesn’t directly copy over.
REPORT CARD
TLDR
Gerald’s Game is one of the best King adaptations to date. It’s a touching tale about overcoming trauma and reclaiming agency. There are certainly visceral scares, but the real horror comes from understanding of the way we try and deal with our pain.
Rating
9.5/10
Grade
A+
Go to Page 2 for the spoiler discussion. Go to Page 3 to view this review’s progress report .
Thomas Jane as Wilfred James Dylan Schmid as Henry James Molly Parker as Arlette James
Release Date
2017
Language (s)
English
Running Time
101 minutes
As someone who actually enjoyed 1922 (the novella), I was fairly excited when I saw that Netflix was going to distribute the adaptation. I’m even happier to announce that this adaptation is not only one of the better King adaptations out and about, but is also an effective horror movie in its own right. The story follows Wilfred James, a farmer whose way of life is under threat when his wife, Arlette, threatens to sell their farm land and leave for the city. Wilfred views land as an extension of ones worth and pride. Losing it is no real option. It gives him both the ability to take care of his family and represents the only thing he can leave his son, an extension of his name, and thereby another source of pride. Fearing that his wife will make good on her word, he decides to commit the cardinal sin and permanently remove her from the situation. However, he soon learns that everyone pays for their actions one way or another.
The framing device the movie uses to tie together all its events is Wilfred in the present day recounting his experiences fighting his wife, deciding to get rid of her, and the subsequent horrifying experiences he has to go through. The movie is a case study in the deterioration that accompanies sin. Even if no one is around to judge you, you know what you did. Your sub-conscious never forgets even if you can put your actions out of your mind. The way the framing device cuts in with the progression of the main story accentuates this feeling by giving the audience first-hand feedback on how the actions ended up impacting Wilfred in the future. As a result, watching him deal with the guilt of his action is both satisfying thematically and visually. The further he falls into the cycle of guilt , the more his world starts to visually crumble. You can always tell the state of his psyche based on the environment around him. It doubles as a cool representation of his inner thoughts and a source of visual scares.
Thomas Jane does a great job as Wilfred. You can see his resolve in his voice and demeanor. He comes off as someone on edge who’s forcing himself to stay rigid and coherent for the sake of his pride. Everything is worth it if he can succeed in his job as a farmer and in his duties as a father. His lineage determines his value as a human being and anything that could harm it is an attack on his very sense of self. It’s why his guilt manifests in such a strong and profound way. It’s because his perception of his worth has shifted, even if he can’t immediately tell it has.
My issues with the movie have more so to do with the original source material and not the adaptation itself. I think the adaptation does a great job at conveying the same sense of paranoia the novella had. The issue is that like the novella, there are some story moves that ruin the ambiguity of whether or not supernatural elements are actually at play. The story wants it to be ambiguous, but the way that it progresses makes that an impossibility. I wish the adaptation just edited certain moments in a different order because it would resolve the ambiguity issue. I also think there are certain additional sequences in the story that hurt the theme and characterization of Wilfred. I was sad to see them kept in the film adaptation. But if you enjoyed the full novella, then this should definitely please you.
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TLDR
1922 is a twisted tale chronicling a man’s descent into depravity. By prioritizing his interests and being unwilling to compromise, he ends up slowly losing his sense of self. Though the ending kind of misses the mark, the movie should satisfy fans of dramas and psychological horrors.
Rating
9.2/10
Grade
A
Go to Page 2 for the spoiler discussion. Go to Page 3 to view this review’s progress report .
Neil Maskell as Jay Michael Smiley as Gal MyAnna Burning as Shel Emma Fryer as Fiona
Release Date
2011
Language(s)
English
Running Time
95 minutes
I remember one rainy day in 2013 I was scrolling through the internet looking for a horror movie to watch that would be scratch a different itch from the supernatural movies I was getting used to seeing. I happened upon a Kill List recommendation, saw it was a crime film, and expected to see a typical psychological thriller. I was not ready for the ride I was getting into. This movie is a violent, adrenaline-fueled crime movie that really pushes the genre into new places. After re-watching this movie years later, I can only say my appreciation for its creativity has gone up.
The movie follows Jay and Gal, former soliders who have started to adapt to life back at home. The former finds it incredibly difficult to re-adjust to civilian life and his inability to go out and provide for the family has caused strains in his domestic life. Thankfully for him, his friend Gal comes in with a hitmen job posting. Jay and Gal receive a series of contracts and go out on a mystery laced journey, killing different seemingly disconnected individuals.
I love how the movie approaches its protagonists’ relationship to violence. Gal is more reserved , wanting to do the work because it gives him an source of income and he’d be good at it. He doesn’t want anything more to do with the job than the job itself. On the other hand, Jay is excited for the work because he misses the feeling of being in combat and persecuting the other. The idea of finding a scumbag, of being able to execute a vision of justice by taking out problematic individuals , in an almost ritualistic fervor is what drives him. Money is just the cherry on the top of it . The juxtaposition of their drives and the way their friendship operates in light of certain revelations is interesting and additionally serves as a referendum on the way that people decide to be jury,judge, and executioner in their actions. The discussion becomes more interesting as the movie delves into the identity of the contractors and the scope of their operations. As more things become revealed, the scope of this discussion becomes more ambiguous and open to interpretation. It’s fun to talk about with friends because everyone can come away with a different meaning for why everything happens.
The movie keeps the audience on its toes in how it approaches its depictions of violence. With a name like Kill List, you know that bodies are going to hit the floor. The question is how gruesome are those moments going to be. I read that Wheatley wanted to maintain a mystery about the way violence would be incorporated which is why every instantiation of it plays differently. There are cut-aways that imply the action have happened. There are also very deliberate, maddening displays of violence that will stay in your head for a while. It’s done for the sake of developing the discourse around the themes, not just for the sake of creating a visual spectacle. It manages to be visceral for the people who like to see more gruesome things and also gives people who want to imagine the depictions of violence room to enjoy things. That multifaceted approach to the issue makes it easy to watch in bigger settings. I’ve found the movie to be a good way to convert more mainstream horror/thriller fans into more out there horror movies, so if you’ve been itching to share that arthouse movie to a buddy, try this out first.
There are certain twists in the third act that I love. I can’t talk about any of them for fear of spoiling the movie, and I urge you to watch the movie without watching any trailers about it. There are some awesome sequences that I can still vividly remember. It’s shocking and should please a lot of people. However, it feels a bit rushed and that’s in spite of certain bits of foreshadowing in earlier scenes. I would have loved if the movie had developed these later elements in with the earlier discussion of violence to create a more nuanced take.
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TLDR
Kill List is a innovative crime horror that pushes the genre into a cool new direction.It’s an interesting look into violence and the way we orient ourselves in relation to it. If you want to show your friends more arthouse horror movies and they’re already into thriller/psychological horror movies then this may serve a sa good transition point.
Rating
9.3/10
Grade
A
Go to Page 2 to view this review’s progress report .
Kika Magalhaes as Francisca Olivia Bond as Young Francisca Paul Nazak as Father Will Brill as Charlie Diana Agostini as Mother
Release Date
2016
Language(s)
English, Portuguese
Running Time
77 minutes
It’s still hard for me to believe that the person who wrote and directed this also co-wrote and directed The Grudge, but after re-watching this movie I’m willing to chalk it up to an anomaly (I’ll re-watch Piercing to be sure.) This black and white horror movie is short, sweet, and to the point. It depicts a young girl, Francisca, undergoing a horrifying life changing event which triggers a psychotic break. What follows is her attempt at creating a new locus of meaning.
The plot progress through a series of chapters, each chronicling a different developmental stage of Francisca’s life. The first chapter looks at the traumatic event that causes our lead to experience a break with reality. She experiences a profound sense of alienation within herself and with the world around her, almost as if the anchor between her and the social world had been severed. As a result, she desperately looks for a replacement – either for the anchor or a replacement for the feeling the anchor provided. Most actions she ends up taking can be traced back to some earlier characteristic or moment from the movie, so the progression feels earned as opposed to just grandiose for the sake of being provocative.
Bond and Magalhaes do an amazing job as Francisca. The former portrays the slip into psychosis with natural ease like she genuinely has a different interpretation of the rules of the world. It’s disturbing at how childlike she comes off as she performs some haunting actions. The latter actress turns everything up a notch, so when things get even more demented it still all feels believable. She’s somehow “innocent” and shy, but the twists in her psyche are ever-present in everything from her actions to her dialogue. It’s like watching someone who exists in their own little world that only tangentially borrows with and interacts with our own.
The story is disturbing without being a spectacle in end of itself. Grotesque depictions of violence never happen. Instead, they’re hinted at through clever camera movement and cuts. We don’t see it happen, but imagining the brutality of events gives the movie a more transcendent sense of horror. If you’re not someone who likes to imagine the terrifying sequences the movie might not do it for you. It’s tasteful in its execution of the macabre, which gives it a clinical feeling. That juxtaposed against the sheer absurdity of Francisca’s life and actions keeps the movie feeling nauseating. You can feel the wrongness seep underneath your skin.
This is complimented by the black-and-white color palette. It gives the movie a timeless feel and accentuates its feeling as a clinical study of an analysand experiencing psychosis. It also doesn’t feel like a film-student gimmick. It’s purposeful in how it thematically reinforces the above and beautiful in the way its utilized to create stunning dynamic shots. There’s more than one slow pan across a room that reveals something unnerving made even worse by Francisca’s almost nonchalant interaction with the same. The lack of color and dynamic presentation forces you to pay attention to the disturbing visual as opposed to escaping in something more pleasant.
My only issue with the movie is how the third act /chapter progresses. Certain sequences occur that don’t match up with previous sequences from the other chapters. I didn’t care much about those issues in the moment, but looking back it’s really strange how the events of the story culminate into the climax. I don’t think it betrays the themes of the movie or its analysis of alienation and psychosis , and it definitely leaves an impact on you. It just feels like the earlier portions of it should have never happened from a “logical” standpoint.
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TLDR
The Eyes of My Mother works as a perverse clinical analysis of alienation and psychosis. It’s dark and oozing with a macabre absurdism that permeates its leads every action. There are disturbing scenes, but most of the horror works on the level of imagination and grappling with the decisions the movie makes. If you have an open mind, or like chilling psychological horror movies that focus on the act as opposed to the spectacle make sure to watch this. At 77 minutes only, it’s not like you have a lot to lose.
Rating
9.7/10
Grade
A+
Go to Page 2 for the spoiler discussion. Go to Page 3 to view this review’s progress report .
Colin Farrell as Steven Murphy Barry Keoghan as Martin Nicole Kidman as Anna Murphy Raffey Cassidy as Kim Murphy Sunny Suljic as Bob Murphy
Release Date
2017
Language(s)
English
Running Time
121 minutes
Saying I love this movie might be an understatement. When I first saw this back in 2017, I was left completely floored. This movie goes dark, nihilistic places but is somehow hilarious in an awful twisted way. It’s one of a kind and had me on the edge of my seats up till the credits started to roll. Watching it again for this review only reminded me of how amazing it all was and I promise I’ll watch more of Yorgos’s stuff in the future (starting with The Lobster) .
The plot summary will be sparse, because watching the mystery unravel is the best part. Steven Murphy is a renowned surgeon, living the bourgeoisie American life. He has a gorgeous exorbitant house and a nice idyllic family life. After he starts a friendship with Martin, an unnerving high school student, his family mysteriously starts falling ill. As he struggles to find a way to bring them back to good health, he’s forced to confront his past and make some truly outrageous decisions.
Without spoiling too much, the movie is about revenge and responsibility. When someone is wronged, how can we rectify the scales? Who should be responsible and how should things play out? The movie doesn’t stray away from some dark explorations into these areas and watching the characters grapple with the weight of their actions is both disturbing and comedic. There’s just something funny about the lengths people will go through to deny the truth of what’s going on in front of them, and Yorgos knows exactly how to depict that absurdity in a way that’s poignant and sardonic. It’s telling of the human condition- in particular the American bourgeoisie lifestyle – in how people are willing trade bits and pieces of themselves to keep a sense of social coherence/status. People are so preoccupied with inflating their sense of self, that they lose focus of the the important things, trading their humanity for some ludicrous fantasy.
You could pause the movie at random (most of the time) and end up with a nice picturesque moment. Yorgos knows how to create tension and mood with proper shot composition. There are gorgeous tracking shots that accentuate drama. Most of the time the camera zooms in or out very slowly to show the characters relation to the situation around them. Often times, it feels like it’s highlighting isolation and their attempts at projecting outside of that. The score only amplifies this feeling. There are boisterous orchestral moments that make the movie feel like a classic, and modern touches like a cover of Ellie Goulding’s Burn (which is horrifying but catchy).
Everyone’s performance is on point, but Barry Keoghan’s portrayal as Martin is something especially noteworthy. He’s creepy – all caps. He comes off a awkward initially, but as the plot progresses he becomes incredibly versatile. He’s menacing, honest, to-the-point, dry, nonchalant,serious and consistent at his core despite shifting among these moods. If he couldn’t balance the dead-pan, serious delivery of the lines, then a lot of more more memorable scenes wouldn’t have the same impact.
I only have a few problems with the movie. Some of the loftier plot elements feel a bit too “convenient” for me to accept without any question. They’re a bit too fantastical and feel at odds with the depth of realism in other areas. Furthermore, I wanted to understand some of the main drivers of the mystery in more depth, because I thought it could add and enhance the discussion of responsibility, but the film avoids that explanation. It becomes a bigger issue because the first act feels at odds with the conclusion of the movie without this explanation.
The characters also feel a bit odd. Don’t get me wrong. They’re memorable, distinct, and definitely all have moments where they shine. They’re just not relatable because they’re all odd, both as individuals and as interconnected units. Their characterization makes the themes of the movie pop out more , but make the horror harder to relate to.
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TLDR
The Killing of a Sacred Deer is a deep dive into the dark crevices of the bourgeoisie psyche. It explores themes of revenge, responsibility, and the practice of engaging in cognitive dissonance for social standings. Some of the more ambiguous elements hold the film back from fully exploring its potential, but it hardly matters. If you’re looking for a dark comedic drama with some absurdist moments, I implore you to check this one out.
Rating
9.7/10
Grade
A+
Go to Page 2 for the spoiler discussion. Go to Page 3 to view this review’s progress report .
Ruth Wilson as Lily Saylor Paula Prentiss as Iris Blum Lucy Boynton as Polly Parsons Bob Balaban as Mr. Waxcap
Release Date
2016
Language(s)
English
Running Time
87 minutes
When I heard that Oz Perkins was releasing his next film I was more than excited. Despite having heaps of garbage, Netflix has a surprising number of gems, and under Perkins’ deft hand, I hoped one more could be added to the library. Thankfully, I was right. Perkins had taken the slow burn elements from his first movie, The Blackcoat’s Daughter, and amped them up to create a surreal almost ethereal audio-visual experience. This is not the movie for people who want jump scares, answers, or a clear story-line. It’s thought provoking, suspenseful, mesmerizing, and pays off in the way it executes its ideas rather than being a spectacle for spectacle’s sake.
The movie follows the intersecting tales of three women and their independent yet related interactions within a house. It opens up with a narration from Lily, a nurse who informs us of her incoming death in the house, as a specter. She recounts her journey in the house from the beginning, when she came in as live-in-nurse to help famed horror author, Iris Blum. As strange things happen in the house, the audience joins Lily through a visceral, strange, and out of bounds journey that always raises questions, but rarely answers them in direct ways.
Wilson does a great job as the lead. As the narrator she channels a strange melancholy aura . It’s eerie and hearing her solemnly narrating her eventual death makes that feeling even more intense. However, as her corporeal self, she’s just a poor nurse trying to do her job in a wonky household. She’s not looking for trouble and comes off as endearing. Despite being different, both performances are believable and knowing where Lily’s eventual journey is going to go, makes analyzing her narrative intonations that much more interesting. Wilson makes you want to know why it happened.
The movie fascinated me in its exploration of death and the way it furnishes a source of meaning between people. Everyone has an impact on each other, so even when they die they never vanish. There’s an impact to their existence that pervades and expands, filling out cracks and crevices. The movie makes that idea more literal by having a spectral Lily narrate portions of the movie. There’s a strange perverse pleasure in knowing that the lead you’re following is dead and talks about their death as though they’re still very much there. This is also why the ending worked so well for me. It’s not grandiose in a traditional sense, but it really pulls together all the thematic and story threads in a neat package.
Despite being only 87 minutes, Perkins also knows how to create a sense of dread and eeriness. Shots are slow and diverse. There are gorgeous panning shots and zoom ins that highlight how alone/not alone Lily really is in the house. The camera lingers on the faces of our actresses in a way that flips a masculine gaze. A pretty thing in the frame, but it’s framed for something tragic and otherworldly, rendering it as something that’s difficult to process. There are also no cheap jump scares. Things come into frame and linger. Their presence is what’s terrifying. Not some crazy noise that tells you to be scared of it. That being said, I thought some of the shots felt excessive. I wished there were a few more scenes thrown in that showed more of the mystery of the lives of our lead women ( I would talk about them but that’d be a spoiler). The movie could have swapped out a few of its longer tracking shots for those. I think it would’ve added to the nuance of the themes, without revealing more of the “mystery”.
REPORT CARD
TLDR
I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House is not a movie for everyone. If you want something like The Conjuring, with nice jump scares and a straightforward plot, you won’t get it. This movie thrives on atmosphere and mystery (sometimes a little too much). It comes off as poetic, almost like an Edgar Allen Poe story come to life. It’s provocative, mesmerizing, and will have you genuinely thinking about your impact on the world .
Rating
9.5/10
Grade
A+
Go to Page 2 for the spoiler discussion. Go to Page 3 to view this review’s progress report .
Mackenzie Davis as Kate Finn Wolfhard as Miles Brookylnn Prince as Flora Barbara Marten as Mrs.Grose
Release Date
2020
Language(s)
English
Running Time
94 minutes
January horror is something special. The Grudgedisappointed me. Underwater surprised me by managing to deliver a surprisingly effective thrill ride. As a result, I went into The Turning not knowing what to expect. I left the theater confused and shocked. I personally enjoyed the movie, but think the litany of flaws and issues makes it impossible to recommend outside of a few niche people that can find enjoyment in less than ideal movies.
The story follows Kate, a teacher who takes on a new position as a live-in tutor for a young girl, Flora. As she begins her position and becomes acquainted with her new student, thing start going bump in the night. Soon after, Flora’s brother, Miles drops on in and the absurdity ramps up even harder. In fact, the movie constantly builds up to its climactic reveal. There were multiple times where I thought I had a theory of what happened, but then something else would happen that would contradict what I thought. Then within the last TEN minutes of the movie, the rug is pulled out from the audience’s feet and after a few WTF scenes, the movie ends. The audience at my theater burst out into a sea of “Huhs”, “What just happened?”, and “Are you f*$king kidding me?”. I may not remember the movie, but the ending is something that will stay with me. It’s hard to even categorize as good or bad because it just is.
A lot of the issues in the movie stem from a huge identity crisis. The movie want to teeter on the edge of psychological and supernatural. It wants the audience to not be sure. The issue is that instead of ambiguous directing that hints that there might be more at hand, every hint towards one genre or the other is heavy handed. They explicitly make the genre present as opposed to debatable which takes away a ton of the nuance. This problem becomes even more egregious in the third act, where certain characters start bringing up plot points that were barely touched on before. It feels like the movie didn’t want to commit to any path so it tried to be everything. The result is a mess that’s incomprehensible. It’s disappointing because the movie does a lot well.
For example, I think all the performances are on point. Mandell starts off bubbly and enthusiastic at the opportunity to teach and it comes off genuine (if a little too excited). She slowly becomes a wreck during the movie and feels just as confused as the audience (which definitely helps you relate to her frustrations). Both Wolfhard and Prince are great as the kids. They bounce off each other well and I can totally believe their sibling relationship. I loved Wolfhard in this movie. He’s usually the nice/funny kid but here he’s a total creeper. Weird lines, ominous edge, aggressive tendencies – he displays it all with gusto. That being said, the star of the show is Marten as the housekeeper, Mrs. Grose. She rides the line between creepy and doting well enough to maintain a sense of mystery about the true extent of her involvement in the unraveling horrors.
The movie is also shot and scored well. The camera is steady and there are a lot of picturesque scenes. I expected more shaky cam and jump scares, but the movie is fairly good at scares. There are jump scares, but none of them are patently false. Scares also linger in the background with noise, so you’re always asking yourself if you saw something move. Nathan Barr’s score is also great.
If the elements were just put together in a more coherent plot, I think the movie could’ve been something special. I personally love weird, ambiguous movies that are open to interpretation. The movie either needed to commit to the heart of the mystery it wanted to tell and then make the hints related to the same OR it needed to be consistent in direction at showing certain phenomena (this makes more sense in the spoiler section).
REPORT CARD
TLDR
The Turning is a movie that tries to be too many things and fails to be anything. It’s a suspenseful, harrowing journey that unfortunately doesn’t go anywhere. If you’re okay with awful/incoherent endings or like weird ambiguous movies there might be something here for you. I liked it and still think the movie leaves a lot to be desired. I do think waiting for a rental might be the move though.
Rating
5.5/10
Grade
F
Go to Page 2 for the spoiler discussion. Go to Page 3 to view this review’s progress report .
An evocative, yet disturbing song plays: “Deedle, deedle, Blackcoat’s Daughter, what was in the Holy Water? Went to bed on an unclean head, the Angels they forgot her.”
While these ominous lyrics fill the aural setting, a quick title card using the same iconic blue font of The Shining informs us that this story will be a haunting one; when approached within the context of the devious ditty, this allusive shorthand portends something wicked waiting to come.
We cut to a young girl, Katherine (Kiernan Shipka), who sleeps with her hands clasped as if in prayer — the “Blackcoat’s daughter” praying while the “Angels” forget her. What thoughts lie in her head?
The film intercuts between her still sleeping and a tracking shot moving towards a snowy landscape shot — a white abyss, another callback to the snowy mountains which serve as The Shining’s primary location.
Why does this vision, her apparent prayer, percolate in her “unclean” head?
Katherine (Kiernan Shipka) sleeps. A black figure in the foreground obscures her.A Close on Katherine’s (Kiernan Shipka) face. Katherine (Kiernan Shipka) looks up at this black figure which obscures half the frame. Perkins uses precise cuts to showcase the relationship between Katherine and the mysterious black specter which intervenes in her sleep state. It crosses her in the frame and we’re suddenly closer to her, as if encroaching within her dream. Then she “wakes” and stares at this figure which divides the frame’s space; the two entities are on opposite sides but the black figure is unknown to us sans Katherine’s declaration that it’s her “Daddy.”
We cut to an alternative take of her still sleeping, her hands now laying by her side — has her call been answered?
A black shape, a counterpoint to the white environment, obscures the foreground and walks past her, disguising a cut which pushes in closer to her face: is this the dream come to life?
She wakes and looks up at the figure which obscures half the frame, isolating her to the opposite side and rendering her alienated: she’s held completely within this entity’s purview.
Then, she innocently addresses this being: “Daddy. You came early.”
There’s a palpable tension as the unknown is rendered familiar, begging the question as to whether our assumptions were wrong or if Katherine has become ensnared in something deeper.
Katherine (Kiernan Shipka) walks forward. Winter continues to push in. Katherine (Kiernan Shipka) reaches one hand out. Katherine (Kiernan Shipka) walks with “Daddy”. Katherine (Kiernan Shipka) grabs a teddy bear. Katherine sees a black car. Katherine (Kiernan Shipka) stares at the car with “Daddy “by her side. Katherine’s (Kiernan Shipka) hand trembles. the wrecked car. Katherine’s journey into the winter setting calls into question the reality of the situation. How did she get here and why is the “Daddy” figure still positioned out of the frame? We’re shown that this is a dream of sorts and the sequence intercuts between the oneiric and the real, using Katherine’s hands in the real world as analogs by which to frame the dream: it’s a cry for companionship, a prayer, a phenomena which defies the body. Whatever it is, the taste it leaves is one of despair.
Suddenly, Katherine walks in the same snowy landscape from her vision, a chimera standing on the interstices of dream and prayer. Another cut to the same tracking shot still pushing forward on the wintery backdrop, confirms that she’s in this unidentifiable location. An eerie foghorn type noise cuts through and ratchets the feeling of unease permeating the moment.
But we cut back to her, still asleep in her bed, her hands now split apart with one of them outstretched — a half-prayer or a call for companionship?
She’s back in the snow walking by this black figure, her “Daddy”.
Then we’re back in her bedroom; the camera is focused on her other hand grabbing a teddy bear, an act of childlike innocence which evokes dread in the grander schema of the intercutting.
She asks the figure: “Daddy, where’s the car?”
We cut back to the snowy wasteland, over her shoulder, and see a crumpled vehicle, shot out-of-focus such as to render it a black blurb in the background; the foghorn comes back. She looks at this wreck in shock while the black figure, her supposed “Daddy”, stands right by her side with its visage still cut out of the frame; what is this creature’s nature and what does it desire?
The outstretched hand starts to tremble as the droning noises get stronger and more invasive. Terror begins to seep in and Katherine calls for her “Mommy” presumably trapped in this wreckage. But then how did “Daddy” make it out and come to her, calling her from her bedroom to the scene of this crash? The loud sound of static is the only response she receives: a non-answer that somehow conveys everything.
The car is finally in focus and we can peer into the wreckage. There are splatters of blood on the front of the car. There are no apparent survivors. There is no explanation to be found.
A resolute cut to black. Are we somehow trapped in the figure from Katherine’s oneiric experience or in another void altogether?
Katherine sits in silhouette. She looks at the calendar. Katherine (Kiernan Shipka) moves closer to the calendar. She’s getting closer to her parent’s visit. The reaction to the vision is one marked by ambiguity because we can’t tell if Katherine is looking out at the wintery fields, a call back to the dream, or if she’s staring at the audience, a wall-break that accentuates the horror of the moment. We learn it was the latter and with that confirmation, we see her move towards a calendar and the sinking feeling portended by the vision becomes stronger: her parents aren’t going to be making this trip.
Before we can ascertain the answer, we see Katherine, now cast fully in a black silhouette, sitting up and gazing; the direction she faces is hidden by the shadows; is she looking towards us, the audience, or looking out from the window at the now retroactively signified wintery hellscape, the place of her parent’s demise?
Her harrowing visions, a perverse answer to her prayers, unheard by any but this shadowy figure, a being which given the opening song we can figure is anything but an angel, seemingly overwhelm her.
She slowly turns her head to the side, revealing that she was in fact staring directly at the audience without us being aware, and looks up a calendar; the days of the month are crossed out in red “X” ‘s with a heart symbol tacked onto a day not yet gotten to.
A closeup of her harrowed face as she goes towards it.
A close-up of the heart symbol and the words inside: “Mom & Dad Here.”
We’re not sure of her vision but we, like Katherine, feel despair knowing that her prayer for the family’s happily ever after will not happen: her parents will die before making it to this encounter; that much is certain.
Katherine from behind. Mr. Gordon (Peter James Haworth) sits next to a cross. Katherine (Kiernan Shipka) sits next to no one. Katherine (Kiernan Shipka) looks over at “nothing”.Mr. Gordon (Peter James Haworth) and Katherine are separated by the cross. The conversation between Katherine and Mr. Gordon is one that firmly confirms the former’s alienation and its spiritual nature. She enters the conversation from a vantage point that emphasizes the subjective nature of her issues but presents a mystery. Her conversation proceeds in a fashion that emphasizes the alienation she feels as she’s constantly shown being completely alone while the image of God seemingly lingers on the other side of her. Yet, her attention it is drawn not to this symbol but to an empty space next to it. By the time we cut to both characters in the same space, we’re concerned with what exactly Katherine is so concerned with.
We cut to a new view of Katherine that starts from the back of her head which is placed in the lower part of the frame, an intentional geographic choice which ties us into the idea of descent, the subconscious, the id, hellish recesses far from the gaze of angels. This shot, a formal choice that film will repeatedly utilize, reinforces the film’s preoccupation with the psychological, unknowable zones of its characters, the oneiric chasms where images can convey meaning only through their interstices, forcing us to put the pieces together in a desperate attempt to understand why the characters do what they do, why they think what they think.
The moment passes as Katherine is called into the Dean’s office. We learn from the Crucifix on the wall that this is a religious educational facility. The ominous opening referencing the silence of the divine sinks even deeper.
Meanwhile, the film’s shot-reverse-shot rendition of the conversation between Katherine and her dean, Mr. Gordon (Peter James Haworth) reinforces the abundant alienation she experiences. She’s framed next to an empty seat while the Dean is framed next to the Crucifix. She’s utterly alone and her small talk reveals the extent of that loneliness as she desperately attempts to make a connection, one that is rebuffed as the Dean explains that he will be absent for her musical performance due to the upcoming school break.
A cut to a wide of the room emphasizes the distance she feels and her desperation to bridge it; she changes her focal point of attention from the person in the room to the spot occupied on the other side of the religious symbol, a gaze qua prayer that she knows falls on deaf ears. There are no Angels or humans waiting to give her company. But she smiles in this moment. What has she seen? Was it “Daddy”?
Gordon attempts to gather an explanation for the oddity but Katherine deflects the inquisition. There will be no answers. Fittingly, the film cuts to black once again, the color thus far imbued with perverse ambiguity.
Rose (Lucy Boynton) enters the room. Rose (Lucy Boynton) walks by slowly. Rose (Lucy Boynton) gets seated. Rose (Lucy Boynton) smiles for the picture. The choice to introduce Rose in slow-motion is one that elevates her position within the scope of the film, imbuing her character with an importance that’s cemented by the nature of her image, one that evokes an Edenic peace. This image is elevated to an Apollonian ideal and will constantly be referenced throughout the run-time as its modal value is evaluated and questioned.
We cut to an empty doorway which the camera slowly repositions to better capture and watch another young woman, Rose (Lucy Boynton), who walks through the frames of this entryway in slow-motion. The eerie ambience transforms into a musical interlude that evokes a sense of jazzy melancholy.
Meanwhile, the camera tracks on Rose who continues to walk slowly down a hallway to a blue, cloudy backdrop — an evocation of heaven. She sits down and gets ready for a school picture. This paradisal backdrop fills the frame and we see Rose, center frame, lower quadrant, break out into a smile for the picture: this is the ideal image.
But the shutter clicks and the screen fades to black once again, formally imbuing this color and the editing refrain itself with the powers of the camera ascertaining and fixing a subject into position.
Rose (Lucy Boynton) in silhouette. Rose (Lucy Boynton) in silhouette looks into mirror. Rose (Lucy Boynton) character card. Rose’s friend (Emma Holzer) listens to Rose (Lucy Boynton).It’s fitting that this image serves to prefigure the introduction of the character proper, one whose immediate aspirations and desires are clouded in an unknowability. We see her in near-silhouette from behind her head, an evocation of earlier shot choices used with Katherine, that reinforce that we’re entering the subjectivity of this young woman and we’ll be forced to piece together the mysteries lurking with her. The most pressing of these is her pregnancy scare, one which she plans on handling herself and takes full responsibility for. This self-reliance and foundational ego serve as a stark contrast to Katherine and the juxtaposition of their respective standings will color the form of the film.
We see Rose again in a bathroom, this time in the iconic shot used earlier on Katherine; her face is partially turned away from the camera and she’s positioned in the lower half of the frame. There’s something running through her mind as she stares into a mirror. While she ponders, one of the film’s three character titles, the first of which is aptly titled “Rose”, appears in the same blue font used in the title card.
It’s a curious choice indeed to open the film on a character and spend time with them, then cut to another character and quickly use a title card to introduce them more formally to the audience; we’re left wondering why Rose’s story can only be understood once we’ve seen Katherine’s circumstances.
But before the question can linger for too long, the film cuts and shows Rose at the nurse’s office acquiring medicine and treatment for an apparent headache. The nurses are obviously suspicious of the circumstances but let nothing slip.
We cut again to Rose smoking a cigarette, clearly a contraband action given the school’s religious depiction, while she talks to her friend (Emma Holzer) in coded terms that imply that she’s scared of an impending pregnancy. Suddenly, her trepidation in the bathroom earlier makes sense.
This vantage point of Rose directly runs in contrast to the pure, saintly image of her shot for the yearbook; we learn that she enjoyed sex with her boyfriend, takes responsibility for her possible pregnancy, still hopes for her period to come, and is unwilling to talk to her parents about this newfound issue.
We cut to her in an assembly and learn this is an all-girl’s school, one that prides itself on the stock of its students, women who are meant to represent with honor the women that have come before them and the women who will come after them at the hallowed halls of the Bramford school. Here, Rose’s actions become registered in a different, symbolic light: her shameful pregnancy, the proof of her sexual actions, an act marked as deviancy by the rules of conduct, becomes elevated to a sin which will bleed into the student populace at general. She half-asses an affirmation to the school’s call to maintain such a code reinforcing this normative schism outwardly while she deals with traversing it internally.
Cars arrive at Bramford. Katherine walks in the opposite direction of the rest of the students, partitioned against them by the trees. Katherine (Kiernan Shipka) cries a tear. Katherine stares out into the empty winter wasteland. Katherine’s journey reinforces her newfound sense of isolation. She is separate from the rest of the students. She is separate from her parents. All that remains is the cold, wintery environment which gives her absolutely nothing. She sheds a tear at the realization that her vision is more likely to be premonition than a nightmare that can be ignored.
With the current session of school now at an end, we see parents’ cars pulling in to pick up their kids and are forcefully reminded of the terrible visions from the film’s start.
Right on cue, we cut from a wide shot which shows the majority of the students walking one way, presumably to their parents, while we see Kathrine hauling herself the other way, desperate to ascertain whether or not her nightmare was true or not. Intense strings accentuate this movement away from the crowd, a desperate attempt to find connection where we know it doesn’t lie.
As foretold, Katherine stares out into the snowy wasteland, a tear streaming down her eyes, and is framed completely alone against this environment.
Rose (Lucy Boynton) looks at Katherine’s performance. Katherine (Kiernan Shipka) plays the piano. Katherine (Kiernan Shipka), separated in the frame by the piano, looks out in the audience. Katherine’s parents are missing. Katherine’s piano performance marks the first encounter between Rose and herself. Rose looks up at Katherine but the older girl’s gaze is not met. Instead, Katherine looks out, while framed fully alone by her musical instrument, at the sea of faces in the crowd and pays attention only to the absent seats her parents would’ve filled if they had managed to make it. This interaction spells out the film: missing moments of interaction between persons both within and absent from a space spur alienation; Katherine does not see Rose and does not see her parents; she is condemned to be alone.
Finally, we see our two primary characters enter one another’s circles when Rose enters the auditorium and sees Katherine play her aforementioned musical number. There’s a wonderful shot of Katherine partitioned in the frame again, the piano in the foreground and out-of-focus acting as a delimiter between her and the rest of the space. She looks out the audience and sees two empty seats, places where we know her parents should have been. The scene cuts when she sings about “hope”; her desire that her premonitions of the future are false finally fade away and she’s forced to accept the cold reality of what she’s seen.
Katherine (Kiernan Shipka) and Katherine (Kiernan Shipka) looks over. Rose (Lucy Boynton) looks over. The first formal encounter between Katherine and Rose affirms the distance between the two young women. They both stare off in completely different directions while dealing with their missing parents. While Katherine’s parents are hinted to be dead, Rose’s parents are implied to be missing due to their daughter’s interference; the difference for the respective parental figures’ missing statuses thus marks the larger dichotomy separating the girls and their respective journeys towards resolving the alienation they feel.
These two girls, one whose parents we are certain are dead and one who wishes to actively avoid her parents for other reasons, are seated next to one another as the administration attempts to figure out what to do with them.
Katherine is questioned about whether or not she’s received a call on her cell-phone from her folks, but she reveals that she doesn’t have such a device, a means by which to communicate with her loved ones, and the group focuses their attention on Rose who lies through her teeth and explains that she told her parents the wrong day to come.
The dean attempts to assuage the girls’ concerns, real and fictional respectively, and jokingly mentions that their parents have to come get them because the girls can’t “live” at the school, a statement which utterly gets under Katherine’s skin because of her forbidden knowledge: where will she end up if she has no home to go to and can’t stay at this educational abode?
There’s an attempt made to get Rose to look after Katherine in the interim period before the duo’s parents are expected to arrive, and the girl’s exchange glances at one another while they’re framed in their singles; it’s a moment of hope on Katherine’s part, a potential connection amongst the darkness, and a moment of irritation for Rose, a potential impediment to the plans she has to resolve her own issues. The latter deflects responsibility, calling back to her illness as an excuse and the principal attempts to wash his hands of the situation and tasks the nurses with getting things back in order before forcing responsibility onto Katherine to do the bare minimum and call to her parents once more.
Katherine (Kiernan Shipka) tries to call her parents again. A nurse (Elena Krausz) sits on the opposite side of the room while Katherine (Kiernan Shipka) finishes her call. Katherine’s attempts to call out to her parents is one doomed to fail, further cementing their portended status. The cut to the wide shot demonstrates just how alone she truly is, as even another person in the room feels miles away as the phone call disappoints and is unable to summon the presence which Katherine so desperately yearns for.
Per this request, Katherine makes phone-calls, communicative gambits she is certain will fail, to her parents and pleads with them, though we know she’s really begging the forces that be, to provide an answer back to her. Her eyes dart around the frame as she waits with baited breath for any possible response.
As she puts the phone down, we cut to a wide shot that highlights the abject distance she feels between herself and others; the nurse in the room feels miles away even as she sits right besides Katherine.
Katherine places the spoon at an angle. Katherine (Kiernan Shipka) obsessively looks at the arrangement. Katherine (Kiernan Shipka) changes the arrangement. Katherine’s intense concentration with the dining table arrangement evokes the same discontent channeled by Taxi Driver’s Travis Bickle. Here his obsession with the Alka-Seltzer is channeled in her obsession with the arrangement that evokes a slight asymmetry. Like Bickle, Katherine’s behavior is disturbing in its severity and deviancy from the norm and her simple act of changing the arrangement speaks to something far greater and more insidious.
The effects of this isolation become more explicit when the girls and nurses go down to eat dinner. There’s clearly something wrong in the air and there’s an intense, unpleasant droning noise that continues to intrude as Katherine fixes her plating arrangements. Initially, she places her spoon at a slightly diagonal angle, a seemingly small mistake in the grand scheme of things but one that she obsessively pores over, staring at the deviant ordering with enough intensity to bore a hole through the whole arrangement; it’s a moment of psychological estrangement that feels right out of Travis Bickle’s playbook in Taxi Driver, warranting a comparison to the infamous and off-putting Alka-seltzer scene. It’s only at the apex of the aural discrepancy that she slightly re-adjusts the spoon back into place, a seemingly minute action which takes on a life far larger than it would desire, but the sounds only continue to reverberate, overpowering the “grace” that is said by the parties present at the table.
Katherine (Kiernan Shipka) talks to Rose (Lucy Boynton) who is out-of-focus in the foreground. Rose and her boyfriend drive away as the snow pelts down. Katherine (Kiernan Shipka) stares down at the couple from a window. Katherine stares at the idyllic image of Rose (Lucy Boynton) Lower angle shot of Katherine (Kiernan Shipka) staring. The phone in the hallway. Katherine’s schism with Rose sets the tone for what’s to come in their relationship. The young girl asks the older one to stay back and take care of her, a cry for help, a desperate last attempt to stay afloat with the visions of her parents’ death dragging her down. But instead, the could-be role-model absconds her duty and instead contributes only frightening, devilish tales for Katherine to hold onto. Katherine (framed apart from everything else) stares as the “pretty” girl drives away, obsesses over the image of this girl ( which is also framed apart from everything else) in a manner that hearkens back to the discomforting look she gave the kitchen utensils earlier, and we finally cut to the ominous payphone in the hallway of the school — the symbol of communication which will now dominate now that all other discursive avenues have been cast aside.
Afterwards, in the dorm rooms, Rose curtly informs the underclassman foisted upon her by the authorities that she will not be “babysitting.” Katherine protests and repeatedly brings up Mr. Gordon’s edict, an attempt at channeling authority, which is quickly brushed aside by Rose, someone who we know couldn’t be bothered to follow the school’s regulations let alone a command given during supposed vacation time.
Katherine attempts to at least figure out what Rose is going to do but is given nothing as the latter informs her that she is going “nowhere.” In lieu of any meaningful information, Katherine instead spreads sordid hearsay in regards to the nurses, sisters who she claims are devil worshippers.
From her view, this diatribe is meant as a prank, a way to keep Katherine on her toes and away from her business, but we know that the latter, one who Rose herself described as a “freaking recording” when she repeated Gordon’s request, will play this haunting tale in her isolated mental landscape over and over again; given the fractured state of mind we know Katherine to be in, we know this malefic narrative’s pervasive influence won’t end well.
Rose, however, is blissfully ignorant of the consequences of her actions, an ironic position to be in given that she’s gone to meet with her boyfriend to deal with the unintended results of their lovemaking, and leaves Katherine with no comfort, refusing to answer the freshman’s questions about the source of this rumor, and leaves her with a warning to stay away from her room and possessions.
The elder girl leaves, goes through the snowy surroundings, and enters her boyfriend’s car where the two lovers embrace one another with a jovial warmth, a communicative interplay that Katherine desperately longs for and stares at unnervingly from above as she’s framed alone, isolated in a large window, physically restrained from this moment of connection.
It’s at this moment that the terrifying ambiance seeps back in and we see her slowly open Rose’s door as the camera pushes in on her, enter the room she was forbidden from going into, and then pick up and touch Rose’s belongings; she gazes down at Rose’s hairbrush and then stares at Rose’s school photos, the artificial Edenic images, with the same intensity that she directed at the spoon earlier at during dinner.
A tear rolls down her face as she cries out for this lost moment to connect with an upperclassman who could assuage her worries but a new moment for communion presents itself as we cut to a silhouetted telephone ringing in an empty hallway. If Rose qua “the Angel” refuses to respond, then whomever is calling on the line will have to do. Right as the terror of the situation settles, we cut again to black — a confirmation of the morbid realization.
Joan (Emma Roberts) stares into a bathroom mirror. Doctors look down. Joan (Emma Roberts) makes a call which goes dead. An map of Bramfoard dissolves into Joan. Joan’s introduction is fraught with mystery. Her gaze into the mirror introduces flashbacks which only raise questions. Her desperate phone-call is a dead-end that goes nowhere. But we know she’s going to Bramford, the location where both Katherine and Rose reside. How will these characters’ journeys interact with one another?
Finally, at near the 19-minute mark, our final character, a third young woman (Emma Roberts), appears and walks into a facility, cautiously looking around as if worried that she’s being followed.
She goes to a bathroom and stares at a mirror while discordant noises begin to play and we see a quick peak into her mind, a distorted flashback comprised of short bursts that hint at a medical facility of sorts. She rips off a wristband and confirms that she’s an escaped patient yet the circumstances surrounding her are kept private.
With quarters in her hand, she quietly attempts to use a payphone; the camera obscures her visage as she holds the phone to her face, desperate to hear her desired contact on the other side; but she receives an error message instead and dejectedly puts the phone down. This disturbing moment serves as a counter-point to the communicative misfires that we saw Katherine experience and the cut from the call happening with her to this call failing to go through connect these seemingly disparate settings and characters into a larger tapestry exploring attempts at connection.
These moments are then more explicitly connected when this escapee wanders the facility, finds a map, and stares at Bramford’s location. The cartographic image, a representation of how to traverse (literal) distance, dissolves to the film’s iconic shot of the young woman, who’s positioned in the lower quadrant of the frame with her head facing away from the audience; whomever she’s looking for is at the school we’ve been made privy to and her thoughts are singularly focused on this point in space even as we wonder what she seeks.
Katherine (Kiernan Shipka) looks up at this black figure which obscures half the frame. Joan (Emma Roberts) looks down as a black figure, Bill, obscures half of the frame. The connections between the seemingly unrelated characters becomes stronger as Perkins uses the nature of the frame to connect Katherine and Joan: both girls are isolated in one half of the frame as a figure in black, father figures of different sorts, covers the other part of the frame. The difference in the images come from the side the black figure approaches and the perspectives of the young women in respect to the figure: Katherine looks up in an embrace while Joan looks away in rejection. The nature of this connection is one of many that the film will expertly navigate and unwind.
While she waits outside, an elderly gentleman, Bill (James Remar), questions her on whether she’s waiting for someone and offers her a ride East. He partitions the frame as his black-coat, shot out-of-focus, takes up more than half of the space and ominously calls back to the opening moment where Katherine’s anointed “Daddy” fulfills an analogous aesthetic function. The two images look like reflections of one another when presented side-by-side and projects these persons in an alike light or, to be more precise, in a similar shadow. We’re left to wonder then if Bill is the same as the shadowy specter which guides Katherine through her visions or if his position on the opposite side of the frame codifies him as a corporeal comrade meant to help the young woman navigate reality.
It’s at this point that the young woman gives up her name: Joan — a contextually charged moniker that alludes to the great saint herself, Joan of Arc, a woman who was immolated for her faith, a spiritual gesture which we’ve been informed by the opening is doomed to fall on silent ears: the failed phone call is transformed into a moment of divine contemplation. Is this car ride a holy answer to her call to get to Bramford? Has her “prayer” been answered in a way she didn’t expect? Or is she walking down a path that will lead to her ultimate demise?
Bill’s car drives away. A cut to black. Rose’s car drives back in. The black frame is used to traverse distances between characters, connecting two car rides going to different places in a manner that suggests that their journey is one in the same.
She accepts the help offered and gets in the car. We see the back of the vehicle drive away and we fade to black once again before fading back to another vehicle belonging to Rose’s partner, which is driving back to Bramford Academy; the edit ties Joan’s journey to Rose’s as well, using the ominous black which the film has cut to as a transition multiple times as a ligature between two different journeys, two different spaces which both lead to the same location.
Thus, the stage is set for the convergence of these three women’s respective desires coming into contact with one another as they try and resolve their respective problems, some of which we’re privy to and others which we’re left more ambiguous about; but all of their issues stem from and are intimately related to: communication and the manner in which it both bridges and causes alienation.
The song which acts as prologue to the film proper and the supernatural opening frame these questions in a religious context, one that evokes the meditations of Ingmar Bergman’s spiritual works ruminating on the silence of God and the meaning of faith in such a world, while using the trappings of the horror genre, both supernatural visuals and psychological interplays, to dramatically raise the stakes of and render the results of these ruminations viscerally explicit.
The constant refrains to a black frame, a plane of unknowability which takes on a plethora of associated functions as the film continues, alongside the film’s shifting spatial chronologies, split amongst the three aforementioned women, give director Oz Perkins the chance to contemplate the same action or lack thereof from multiple perspectives, effectively keeping the narrative engaging even as it circles on itself like an ouroboros, devouring seemingly everything it proffers in search of an inner meaning which is only made explicitly clear as the final narrative domino drops.
The aesthetic decisions, both the choice to focus on the character’s visages — lower quadrant shots and close-ups of their faces — and their unknowability — deep shadows and constant silhouettes obscuring possible information — along with the Antonioni-like framing of the character’s against persons and backdrops that render them isolated in the frame, exposing their inner-most thoughts visually through the mise-en-scène, have a psychological effect that compliments the narrative as it shifts through space and time, accentuating moments of uncertainty and unease which make the unnerving progressions chilling to experience and render the set-pieces, few and far-between, an absolute terror to witness.
In spite of its aesthetic and narrative withholdings, Perkins never “cheats” the viewer, carefully presenting all the details along the way in such a manner that one finishes the film and realizes that the twists were truthfully presaged and the disasters were dutifully portended. Caught under the film’s spell, the viewer is left entranced and befuddled until the moment of divine revelation is rendered, leaving them as chilled as the wintery backdrop that serves as the film’s milieu.
REPORT CARD
TLDR
The Blackcoat’s Daughter is one of the truly great debut films, utilizing the horror genre to explore deep-seated questions about faith and meaning without sacrificing the bite and terror one would associate with it. The film deftly intercuts between different perspectives, delivering a cartography of the psyche that will leave attentive viewers truly haunted.
Rating
10/10
Grade
S
Go to Page 2 for the spoiler discussion and more in-depth analysis. Go to Page 3 to view this review’s progress report .