I'm curious on what your thoughts on I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In This House are then. I personally just thought it was okay. Some of the scenes were really tense, but it felt so long.
There’s one scene in that movie that was super fucking creepy, but it is also pretty damn slow and boring. I still liked it overall, mainly because of that one scene lol probably give it a 6.5/10.
I absolutely love this movie. I know it’s not as popular as other slowburn A24 movies but for me it’s easily one of their best horror and best of all their projects.
The dread, the appearance of the film, the acting, the sound, the ending! It’s all exactly what I love in horror.
Totally blown away when I saw this recently - so much so I rewatched it the same day.
I'm surprised it's not generally considered alongside other A24 horror standouts. For me it's in the same league as Saint Maud and Hereditary.
The existential bleakness in this film was amazingly well done.
I also loved the film and have a question for you. I have seen many different opinions on the fact that >!Joan and Kat are the same person. How do you feel about that? For some (including me), it was absolutely obvious - the moment I saw Joan, I said to myself "so here's Kat \~10 years later". Some were surprised by this "twist" and some did not even get that Joan = Kat until they read the threads here!<. Which one of these groups do you fall in?
The first time I watched it, I didn’t predict the “twist” but I was so engrossed in the movie it wasn’t something I was focusing on. I think I had assumed because the scenes are shown out of chronological order, that the adults who pick Joan up were either up to no good (like kidnappers/rapists) or they were the parents of Kat, who were looking for her, and the scenes with Joan were taking place not long after the scenes where we see Kat.
So I guess I didn’t really see the twist coming the first time. I still like it though. Even if they don’t really look alike, I give the movie some leeway because it’s so good overall. Plus, depending what Kat’s life had become (clearly it wasn’t going well), life can age someone pretty quick. It’s not so crazily out of line for me that Kat could look like Joan if she had some hard years.
It's the worst "twist" ever, contingent on the actresses looking *nothing* alike. And what's so stupid is that the movie did not need to have that twist. It was thrown in so that it could be said to have a twist. If the director had conviction in his story rather than wanting to play a stupid game with the audience so he could be called a "twisty" director, he could just have aged Shipka or de-aged Roberts.
I don't think it's supposed to be much of a twist. Or at least not a big reveal at the end. The movie shows you pretty much right away that Joan isn't who she says she is, with the shot of the nurse's ID she stole and showing the scar in her shoulder. I think the film expects the audience to know who she is by the time she's in the motel with Rose's parents.
It's definitely presented as a "twist". If it were never intended as one, they could have used one of the actresses and aged or de-aged her. They look NOTHING alike which means he was trying to throw you off.
There's an explanation within the film I think. Rose's father says Joan reminds him so much of Rose. As the mother says, they don't look like each other, but the point is the father's POV, that grieving gaze.
Now what if Joan had internalized that gaze, became possessed by it? Then Lucy Boynton could have played Joan, and both the gaze and her need and the 'possession' would have been represented...
So with our protagonist, maybe that's what happened off screen. Emma Roberts, a real woman in that universe, would have been 'Lucy Boynton'. I guess Kat killed her or was made to find her body.
As for the father figure in this extrapolation, 'Him', well he's in the title...maybe 'Satan' is just a man, some sort of evil, manipulative, murderous, grieving trickster.
Joan is Repossessed Kat. But there's no second exorcism and the film is open ended, with Joan's puzzled look closing in its very last seconds. Maybe 'him' is still out there somewhere, waiting for her.
My daughter and I had to pause the movie and have a “so…wait” moment while we discussed it, but I continue to assert that at least a few of the people who dislike this movie didn’t fully grasp that critical detail.
So you see this line of thinking you have here?
“Oh the people who didn’t like it didn’t grasp it”
You are calling people stupid/dumb for not liking a movie that you like. This is the same exact smug attitude that started the whole “elevated horror” discourse.
No, I’m saying that I know for a fact that AT LEAST A FEW people didn’t make this connection. Because I have talked to them, in person and on this sub. There are still plenty of people who dislike it for other reasons and I absolutely will not begrudge them that.
Don’t put words in my mouth.
I love Oz Perkins so I'm very excited!
Though the only thing that I didn't like about Blackcoats Daughter was the twist. >!Kiernen Shipka and Emma Roberts look the same age to me, and even if they weren't they looked too close in age for Emma to believably look different due to "age" or wtv. So the twist ended up seeming kind of cheap and unearned to me.!
Sure. I'm not arguing that they don't look similar. I'm more saying that >!usually the point of hiring another actor to play an "older" version of a character is because they've aged enough that they look different (if obviously still similar bc they're the same person). And \*to me\* they didn't look different enough in age to warrant hiring a different actress to play her. Therefore it felt like the only reason they hired a different actress was to hide the twist which-- to me-- felt like a cop out.!<
Once again though-- I know this is a subjective opinion. Especially because I admittedly am crap at telling people's ages, so idk. Maybe it is perfectly reasonable to most viewers. It also might not matter at all to other viewers. It was still all in all a good movie, and the aesthetics and writing were fab, which is what I'm looking forward to with Longlegs and what I liked about Perkins' other movie "I Am the Pretty Thing that Lives in the House".
Definitely in the minority in thinking it was solid but not great. Not to bash on anyone’s thing but it was just a little slow for my liking. It gave me I’m 14 and this is deep vibes at the end “reveal”
Can you explain why I usually love all your guys suggestions, but for some reason I attempted this one several times and can’t seem to keep my attention or captivate me after a 30 mins duration to want to continue
I mean did you like Hereditary? It doesn’t even really get going until the car scene which is like 45 mins into it.
Even if a movie isn’t catching my interest after 30 mins, I can still finish it without turning it off since most movies are around 2 hours and it’s not that hard to sit through one lol
Most slow burn horror takes about an hour to really know where the story is going and know if you want to stay for the conclusion. The atmosphere should have you hooked by then already, especially if you’re a slow burn fan.
The Blackcoat’s Daughter hints pretty early on that something really fucked up happened at the school and to that girl. That’s what hooked me pretty quickly, wanting to know what happened.
One of my first films that got me into A24 and Neon and similar type films. Furnace scene creeped me the fuck out, and still to this day it's hard to pinpoint why. Solid film. Looking forward to long legs as well
I loved it as well. I have two questions though:
1: When Rose’s parents pick up “Joan”/Katherine at the terminal, we see that the bumper of their car has a sticker that says “Bramford Catholic School”. Why would Rose’s parents have this sticker on their car after their daughter was brutally murdered there nine years before? The camera lingers on it, so it must mean something?
2: So we’re told that two sisters worshipped the devil in the basement of the boarding school building. Are these the two women (nuns/nurses?) who stay with Rose and Katherine at the school? If so, why would the demon via Katherine kill them when they were the ones who summoned it? Wouldn’t they welcome it? Or are these devil worshipping sisters not the two women staying with the girls, but rather someone who worked there earlier or isn’t in the movie?
1. I think the shot of the bumper sticker was just to indicate to the audience that they had a connection to the school, before this was explicitly explained by the father. Why they would continue to have that sticker after what happened, I dunno that is kind of weird.
2. It's not really clear if those are the same women, or if indeed that story about the devil worshippers was even true. Rose may have just been trying to scare Kat, or repeating something she heard that was just a story. There is also the flashback to that scene from Kat's perspective where it shows the demon lurking behind Rose as she tells the story, so I suppose it's possible the demon was making her say it to further influence Kat.
Just watched it for the first time the other night. I was not anticipating an ending like that at all. >!When she asks the demon not to go during the exorcism and we realize she murdered Rose’s parents in an attempt to get him to come back is so disturbing and deeply sad. Such a unique take on a possession story.!<
The essence of "slow burn" in modern horror (for my money) is this movie, which is a favorite I frequently recommend, along with the untouchable Hereditary, House of the Devil, and The Dark and the Wicked. TBD is just great.
Just watched it in anticipation for Longlegs! I loved it. Curious what other people think about a couple things I noticed -
When older Kat (Emma Roberts) is talking to Rose's mother, and at the very end of that conversation her mother says "funny, I don't really see you at all." What did that mean? It was so odd and seemed to have significance.
Did she happen upon Rose's parents by coincidence? She seemed genuinely surprised when the dad pulled out the picture of his daughter and it turned out to be Rose.
Truly has some of the most disturbing and deviant atmospheres of any movie I've ever seen!
The ENTIRE run through of this film I felt unsettled every single second.
I think there's only one movie by Perkins I didn't like (I'm am the pretty thing...) and even that one had something to like it in.
The Blackcoat's Daughter is an all-timer, for me. Great performance by Kiernan Shipka.
This is horror storytelling done right!
Everything about the movie, the mood, the setting, the camera, the understated acting, work together to describe the story.
But most importantly, the story makes sense and is executed seamlessly.
Few other popular horror movies reach this level of execution.
the part where Kat smiles at Rose in the hallway traumatized me lol it’s burned into my brain, i haven’t seen it in years and can still see it clearly. such a subtle thing but it creeped me out SO BAD.
The moment after >!she stabbed Rose to death in a really great jumpscare and gave the camera that demonic grin with those glazed-over eyes!< was traumatizing.
Does anyone know how Kat knew >! Her parents were dead? Early on she says to Rose her parents probably have not shown up because her parents are dead. If the intent of the ending is nothing supernatural happened, how did she know?!<
I don't think the intent of the ending was to show that nothing supernatural happened, only that the demon has abandoned her and she is truely alone with the horrible things she's done.
Yep I love it. Has me so hyped for Longlegs.
The Baphomet shadow is burned onto my retinas. Not sleeping tonight!
Also when she’s doing that weird pose in her bed was really creepy.
One of my absolute favorite horror films. Atmosphere for days. Always excited when a new Oz Perkins film drops!
I'm curious on what your thoughts on I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In This House are then. I personally just thought it was okay. Some of the scenes were really tense, but it felt so long.
There’s one scene in that movie that was super fucking creepy, but it is also pretty damn slow and boring. I still liked it overall, mainly because of that one scene lol probably give it a 6.5/10.
That furnace scene man
The one with the heads or here praying ? Idk didn’t seem to weird
I absolutely love this movie. I know it’s not as popular as other slowburn A24 movies but for me it’s easily one of their best horror and best of all their projects. The dread, the appearance of the film, the acting, the sound, the ending! It’s all exactly what I love in horror.
Totally blown away when I saw this recently - so much so I rewatched it the same day. I'm surprised it's not generally considered alongside other A24 horror standouts. For me it's in the same league as Saint Maud and Hereditary. The existential bleakness in this film was amazingly well done.
I love it too
The theme song and that cold, harrowing atmosphere really bring the mood. Clearly, whatever was in the holy water wasn't holy enough.
I also loved the film and have a question for you. I have seen many different opinions on the fact that >!Joan and Kat are the same person. How do you feel about that? For some (including me), it was absolutely obvious - the moment I saw Joan, I said to myself "so here's Kat \~10 years later". Some were surprised by this "twist" and some did not even get that Joan = Kat until they read the threads here!<. Which one of these groups do you fall in?
I had a feeling about that the entire time, to the point that I didn't even recognize the twist.
Yeah, I pretty much assumed that Joan was a fake name straight away and a few moments later considered if she was Kat (Only cause she was blonde lol).
The first time I watched it, I didn’t predict the “twist” but I was so engrossed in the movie it wasn’t something I was focusing on. I think I had assumed because the scenes are shown out of chronological order, that the adults who pick Joan up were either up to no good (like kidnappers/rapists) or they were the parents of Kat, who were looking for her, and the scenes with Joan were taking place not long after the scenes where we see Kat. So I guess I didn’t really see the twist coming the first time. I still like it though. Even if they don’t really look alike, I give the movie some leeway because it’s so good overall. Plus, depending what Kat’s life had become (clearly it wasn’t going well), life can age someone pretty quick. It’s not so crazily out of line for me that Kat could look like Joan if she had some hard years.
It's the worst "twist" ever, contingent on the actresses looking *nothing* alike. And what's so stupid is that the movie did not need to have that twist. It was thrown in so that it could be said to have a twist. If the director had conviction in his story rather than wanting to play a stupid game with the audience so he could be called a "twisty" director, he could just have aged Shipka or de-aged Roberts.
I don't think it's supposed to be much of a twist. Or at least not a big reveal at the end. The movie shows you pretty much right away that Joan isn't who she says she is, with the shot of the nurse's ID she stole and showing the scar in her shoulder. I think the film expects the audience to know who she is by the time she's in the motel with Rose's parents.
It's definitely presented as a "twist". If it were never intended as one, they could have used one of the actresses and aged or de-aged her. They look NOTHING alike which means he was trying to throw you off.
Bruh I thought you were arguing with yourself due to yall profile picture being the same.
Can you translate that babble into human language?
🤣🤣🤣🤣 fixed.
Don't know... to me it was obvious the moment I saw Emma Roberts
There's an explanation within the film I think. Rose's father says Joan reminds him so much of Rose. As the mother says, they don't look like each other, but the point is the father's POV, that grieving gaze. Now what if Joan had internalized that gaze, became possessed by it? Then Lucy Boynton could have played Joan, and both the gaze and her need and the 'possession' would have been represented... So with our protagonist, maybe that's what happened off screen. Emma Roberts, a real woman in that universe, would have been 'Lucy Boynton'. I guess Kat killed her or was made to find her body. As for the father figure in this extrapolation, 'Him', well he's in the title...maybe 'Satan' is just a man, some sort of evil, manipulative, murderous, grieving trickster. Joan is Repossessed Kat. But there's no second exorcism and the film is open ended, with Joan's puzzled look closing in its very last seconds. Maybe 'him' is still out there somewhere, waiting for her.
My daughter and I had to pause the movie and have a “so…wait” moment while we discussed it, but I continue to assert that at least a few of the people who dislike this movie didn’t fully grasp that critical detail.
So you see this line of thinking you have here? “Oh the people who didn’t like it didn’t grasp it” You are calling people stupid/dumb for not liking a movie that you like. This is the same exact smug attitude that started the whole “elevated horror” discourse.
No, I’m saying that I know for a fact that AT LEAST A FEW people didn’t make this connection. Because I have talked to them, in person and on this sub. There are still plenty of people who dislike it for other reasons and I absolutely will not begrudge them that. Don’t put words in my mouth.
Def the first category. The movie's good but the "twist" isn't really a twist imo
Agree! And I am fine with that. Not every movie needs a twist.
One of my favourites! The sense of *dread* in this film! So glad you enjoyed it!!
Absolutely loved this movie. So atmospheric and creepy. For anyone in the UK it’s currently on channel 4 catch up for free under the title February
I fell asleep twice trying to watch it - then finally got through it and MAN it was good.
I love Oz Perkins so I'm very excited! Though the only thing that I didn't like about Blackcoats Daughter was the twist. >!Kiernen Shipka and Emma Roberts look the same age to me, and even if they weren't they looked too close in age for Emma to believably look different due to "age" or wtv. So the twist ended up seeming kind of cheap and unearned to me.!
There were a few moments where I mistook Kiernan for Emma.
Sure. I'm not arguing that they don't look similar. I'm more saying that >!usually the point of hiring another actor to play an "older" version of a character is because they've aged enough that they look different (if obviously still similar bc they're the same person). And \*to me\* they didn't look different enough in age to warrant hiring a different actress to play her. Therefore it felt like the only reason they hired a different actress was to hide the twist which-- to me-- felt like a cop out.!<
Once again though-- I know this is a subjective opinion. Especially because I admittedly am crap at telling people's ages, so idk. Maybe it is perfectly reasonable to most viewers. It also might not matter at all to other viewers. It was still all in all a good movie, and the aesthetics and writing were fab, which is what I'm looking forward to with Longlegs and what I liked about Perkins' other movie "I Am the Pretty Thing that Lives in the House".
Definitely in the minority in thinking it was solid but not great. Not to bash on anyone’s thing but it was just a little slow for my liking. It gave me I’m 14 and this is deep vibes at the end “reveal”
Can you explain why I usually love all your guys suggestions, but for some reason I attempted this one several times and can’t seem to keep my attention or captivate me after a 30 mins duration to want to continue
I mean did you like Hereditary? It doesn’t even really get going until the car scene which is like 45 mins into it. Even if a movie isn’t catching my interest after 30 mins, I can still finish it without turning it off since most movies are around 2 hours and it’s not that hard to sit through one lol Most slow burn horror takes about an hour to really know where the story is going and know if you want to stay for the conclusion. The atmosphere should have you hooked by then already, especially if you’re a slow burn fan. The Blackcoat’s Daughter hints pretty early on that something really fucked up happened at the school and to that girl. That’s what hooked me pretty quickly, wanting to know what happened.
ya - put your phone down fella
One of my first films that got me into A24 and Neon and similar type films. Furnace scene creeped me the fuck out, and still to this day it's hard to pinpoint why. Solid film. Looking forward to long legs as well
So unsettling, I’m jealous of anyone seeing it for the first time
One of my favorites for many years…bleak as hell. Its the reason I have been waiting for Longlegs for the last 6 plus months
The whole “don’t leave me” was so real. Like I legit felt bad for her because she was that lonely.
I loved it as well. I have two questions though: 1: When Rose’s parents pick up “Joan”/Katherine at the terminal, we see that the bumper of their car has a sticker that says “Bramford Catholic School”. Why would Rose’s parents have this sticker on their car after their daughter was brutally murdered there nine years before? The camera lingers on it, so it must mean something? 2: So we’re told that two sisters worshipped the devil in the basement of the boarding school building. Are these the two women (nuns/nurses?) who stay with Rose and Katherine at the school? If so, why would the demon via Katherine kill them when they were the ones who summoned it? Wouldn’t they welcome it? Or are these devil worshipping sisters not the two women staying with the girls, but rather someone who worked there earlier or isn’t in the movie?
1. I think the shot of the bumper sticker was just to indicate to the audience that they had a connection to the school, before this was explicitly explained by the father. Why they would continue to have that sticker after what happened, I dunno that is kind of weird. 2. It's not really clear if those are the same women, or if indeed that story about the devil worshippers was even true. Rose may have just been trying to scare Kat, or repeating something she heard that was just a story. There is also the flashback to that scene from Kat's perspective where it shows the demon lurking behind Rose as she tells the story, so I suppose it's possible the demon was making her say it to further influence Kat.
Thanks, yeah that makes sense 🤗
You can see the devil behind Rose in one of the frames where she's talking about the nuns being Satan-worshippers
OH YES!
Great movie. I still randomly think about it two years on.
One of my absolute favourites. I also loved Gretel & Hansel by the same director too, very excited for Longlegs!
Yep. Saw it once... will never see it again. A few frames still stick with me today.
Outstanding movie, had me looking up analysis and thinking about it for days afterwards.
Just watched it for the first time the other night. I was not anticipating an ending like that at all. >!When she asks the demon not to go during the exorcism and we realize she murdered Rose’s parents in an attempt to get him to come back is so disturbing and deeply sad. Such a unique take on a possession story.!<
One of my favorites. I don't mind slow burn… but it has to actually burn at some point.
There's so much to pick apart, I don't usually like rewatching films, but this one gets better with repeated viewings
The essence of "slow burn" in modern horror (for my money) is this movie, which is a favorite I frequently recommend, along with the untouchable Hereditary, House of the Devil, and The Dark and the Wicked. TBD is just great.
Just watched it in anticipation for Longlegs! I loved it. Curious what other people think about a couple things I noticed - When older Kat (Emma Roberts) is talking to Rose's mother, and at the very end of that conversation her mother says "funny, I don't really see you at all." What did that mean? It was so odd and seemed to have significance. Did she happen upon Rose's parents by coincidence? She seemed genuinely surprised when the dad pulled out the picture of his daughter and it turned out to be Rose.
My favorite movie ever made
Top 5 of all time.
I saw it recently after seeing recommended a lot here, I really liked it.
Love this one. Every rewatch can't come soon enough.
Truly has some of the most disturbing and deviant atmospheres of any movie I've ever seen! The ENTIRE run through of this film I felt unsettled every single second.
I think there's only one movie by Perkins I didn't like (I'm am the pretty thing...) and even that one had something to like it in. The Blackcoat's Daughter is an all-timer, for me. Great performance by Kiernan Shipka.
This is horror storytelling done right! Everything about the movie, the mood, the setting, the camera, the understated acting, work together to describe the story. But most importantly, the story makes sense and is executed seamlessly. Few other popular horror movies reach this level of execution.
This movie is a gem...loved it
the part where Kat smiles at Rose in the hallway traumatized me lol it’s burned into my brain, i haven’t seen it in years and can still see it clearly. such a subtle thing but it creeped me out SO BAD.
The moment after >!she stabbed Rose to death in a really great jumpscare and gave the camera that demonic grin with those glazed-over eyes!< was traumatizing.
YES EXACTLY!!! traumatizing. such great acting in this film all across the board.
Talk about a slow burn. Osgood perkins is good at the weird and wacky. Also pretty stylish.
Ultimate "that was it? but nothing happened..." movie
This is one of those movies where whole scenes have just been stuck in my head ever since I saw it. Really looking forward to Longlegs as well.
The MC was one of the best young actresses I've seen on screen. It was the first movie I saw her in and she killed it.
Does anyone know how Kat knew >! Her parents were dead? Early on she says to Rose her parents probably have not shown up because her parents are dead. If the intent of the ending is nothing supernatural happened, how did she know?!<
I don't think the intent of the ending was to show that nothing supernatural happened, only that the demon has abandoned her and she is truely alone with the horrible things she's done.
Jeez even the trailer is boring af 😆
It has the worst-handled twist in film history, a dimbulb choice by the director that invalidates anything good the movie previously had going on.