There’s a palpable negative mood oozing out of every poor of every frame of this film. Seemingly innocuous conversations are accompanied by a spine-shiver of a musical score to the point that it could make placing a toaster strudel in an oven chilling. That’s worth something if nothing else in the movie worked… but happily a lot did work.

The Blackcoat’s Daughter is a film set in multiple timelines but it’s easiest logline is that it’s about a couple of boarding school students who are left behind during a winter holiday. They mope and creep about the empty halls, instilling in us a despondent, lonesome feeling. And that’s before anything actually creepy happens (like worshipping the boiler).

I don’t think the movie is as cryptic as it seems at first glance. Once you nail that there’s at least two timelines going on and we get a name reveal, it all starts to make sense. And then it reveals some things and that sense of dread transforms into a sense of inevitable doom. It’s one of those flicks that tells you what’s going to happen and you have to grip your pillow tight while it happens. Slowly.

This is a slow burn film that I think will appeal to anyone who likes slow burns and doesn’t need jump scares to tell them when to be creeped out. Or, really, any of the traditional scare tactics that really don’t work if you’ve seen enough scary movies. This one got under my skin, took up camp, and laughed at me. It’s solid creepsauce.

Score: 89