The Blackcoat’s Daughter: The Horror of Spiritual Loneliness

Melvin & Dan talk about one of Mel’s favorite movies, The Blackcoat’s Daughter, perhaps the most painstakingly slow burning, brooding mood slashers ever made. Also, Melvin gets really honest about why he loves The Blackcoat’s Daughter so much. 

Topics:

• Melvin has wanted Daniel to watch The Blackcoat’s Daughter since they started the podcast. Finally, it happened. 
• The Blackcoat’s Daughter shows various aspects of alienation, loneliness, and general social dysfunction despite its small cast. 
• Despite The Blackcoat’s Daughter being set at a spiritually indistinguishable denominational school, an aesthetic choice likely chosen to add flavor to the horror, Melvin finds himself deeply connecting with the general atmosphere present within the film. 
• The structure of The Blackcoat’s Daughter is extremely subtle, with even its timeline giving small yet pivotal narrative clues. 
• Daniel read that Ozgood Perkins wanted the film to be about loneliness, which as stated before clearly comes through the film. 
• The Blackcoat’s Daughter lends itself well to rewatching, both in shedding light on the narrative, and introducing more curiosities. 
• When either a secular or religious person has no support system, they are prone to fill the void of community, companionship, and intimacy with risky and dangerous solutions often because those are easier or simpler to implement than an entire social structure. 
• Melvin feels The Blackcoat’s Daughter displays a convincing, gentle, yet clear perspective as to why one may be attracted to evil, and he feels the film can help bring a sense of clarity and compassion toward an otherwise contentious subject matter.
• There’s a really strong dream-like logic to The Blackcoat’s Daughter in which things don’t necessarily make real-world sense but heavily improve the film’s overall tone.
• Daniel, “Helping somebody who’s [overtly] choosing something other than God… that’s a tough one. Because there’s something about the thing they’re choosing that calls to them uniquely.”
• Melvin, “In terms of [The Blackcoat’s Daughter] a resolution to loneliness is companionship. But learning… learning to be a good friend is hard.”

Recommendations:

• Global Impact Bible: ESV
• Find and visit your local pop-up Spirit Halloween!
• Young Justice (Show) & Batman: The Brave and the Bold (Show)

The Blackcoat’s Daughter is Rated R for brutal bloody violence and brief strong language. It features Emma Roberts, Kiernan Shipka, Lucy Boynton, James Remar, and Lauren Holly. Directed by Oz Perkins. The Blackcoat’s Daughter is available on VUDU.

Consider supporting Cinematic Doctrine on Patreon! As a bonus, you can gain access to a once-a-month movie poll where you decide a movie we discuss on the podcast, early unedited episodes of the podcast, and merch!!

Melvin Benson is the Founder, Editor-In-Chief, and Lead Host of Cinematic Doctrine. Whether it’s a movie, show, game, comic, or novel, it doesn’t matter. As long as it’s rich, he’s ready and willing to give it a try! His hope is to see King Jesus glorified as far as the east is from the west!

Cinematic Doctrine is available on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and other major podcast apps.