The Blackcoat’s Daughter

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The Blackcoat’s Daughter is a 2015 American-Canadian supernatural psychological horror film written and directed by Oz Perkins. The film stars Emma Roberts, Lucy Boynton, Kiernan Shipka, James Remar and Lauren Holly.

Ok, this is a bit boring so it’s not for all horror fans. Not that it’s scary, it’s more of a psychological horror. The movie shows us two girls, Katherine and Rose, who are enrolled in a prestigious Christian boarding school for girls. At a winter break, these two are the only ones who haven’t come to pick them up. Rose says her parents thought they had to pick her up a few days later while Kat’s parents are unreachable. Mr. Gordon, who is in charge of the school, says that they can stay there until their parents can pick them up and leaves two sisters in charge of them.

Rose, a senior at the school, thinks she is pregnant and goes out at night with her boyfriend to whom she wants to discuss this. When Kat protests, she tells her that the  telling her a story about the nuns at the school being devil-worshipers. When Rose returns, she goes to the bathroom and hears strange noises coming from the boiler room and goes to investigate. When she looks through a window in the door she sees Kat prostrating in front of the lit boiler. Kat had picked up a phone call and hears a distorted man’s voice telling her to kill all of them. She is soon possessed by a demon and is seen being contorted in an inhuman way.  Kat tells Rose she knows her parents are dead, which disturbs Rose.

Kat begins to act strangely and is unable to pray and when she is scolded, vomits. As the nuns try to nurse her, she lashes out at them. Mr. Gordon rings to tell them he will be coming back to the school. It is implied that Kat’s parents have indeed died in a car crash. The women ask Rose to shovel the driveway for him. After shoveling, Rose tries to re-enter the chaperones’ house but the doors are locked, so she returns to her dorm room. Kat stabs and kills the two nuns and then kills Rose. She cuts off their heads and is found by Gordon and a policeman at the boiler seemingly offering the heads to the demon. She yells Hail Satan and is shot on the shoulder by the cop.

Kat is taken to an hospital and as she heals a priest performs an exorcism on her and the demon is gone. She is left in an insane asylum for 9 years but kills a nurse named Joan and steals her identity and makes her way to the boarding school. She is met at a bus stop by a man who offers her a ride in his car along with his wife. It turns out to be Rose’s parents who are on to their way to the town that the boarding school is on the anniversary of their daughter’s death. Joan finds out that they are Rose’s parents and takes a knife from a restaurant and kills both the man and his wife, cuts off their heads and takes it to the boarding school.

Joan enters the boiler room with the suitcase only to find the boiler dark and cold. The demon is long gone and the school has been abandoned. She exits the school and looks back at it as she begins to sob, realizing she is truly alone. After the loss of her parents she was truly happy with the demon and wanted it to possess her. Strange ending but the movie is boring to say the least. I fell asleep at one point. 6 outta 10!

Star Trek Discovery : Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad

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Star Trek Discovery‘s 7th episode has a familiar Star Trek and scifi theme – a time loop, destruction and repeat. Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad may have a familiar feel to it but that does not make the episode any less entertaining and enjoyable.

Episode Synopsis:

While attending a crew party, Burnham and Tyler are called to the bridge to deal with an endangered space creature that the Discovery has come across. When the creature is brought on board, it is revealed to be carrying a person: Harry Mudd. He plans to kill Lorca and sell the ship to the Klingons, but when he is caught he blows up the ship instead. Time returns to the party earlier, with Burnham and Tyler called to the bridge again. They are intercepted by Stamets, who is aware that they are in a time loop due to his interactions with Ripper. Over several time loops Stamets works with Burnham and Tyler to find a solution to the problem while Mudd gets further in his plan each time. They eventually convince Mudd that he has won, and he ends the time loop. Preparing to receive a boarding party of Klingons, Mudd is instead confronted by his “beloved” Stella and her father, from whom he had stolen her dowry. They take Mudd away. Stamets reveals to Burnham and Tyler that in one of the time loops they had danced together and kissed.

So while I was not really that chuffed about this episode, many people were. It’s been done before – especially a memorable episode in TNG – so I wasn’t that happy. Yet it did have it’s cool moments. The crew having some down time while still in the midst of this war with the Klingons (though they are winning at this point and hence it is understood) and having a party with music and drinks. Though playing an annoying 21st century hip-hop version of a Bee Gees disco classic (disco on the Disco-very, get it) is not cool. Tyler & Burnham kiss in one of the time loops, so you know that the pair are going down that road soon.

While I am know for not liking time travel (if done right it’s great, if not it just plain sucks) I can enjoy the complexity of it. Plus Rainn Wilson is loving it playing Harry Mudd in a Star Trek show (he is a fan) and is hamming it up. Again, even though I have a hard time placing him as the same Harry Mudd from TOS. And what’s up with Stamets? I just feel that something major is happening to that guy. Now he is outside of normal time! Will we see him transform and change into something else? And perhaps that’s why the spore drive is lost to Starfleet and we never see it again.

And one more thing – I can buy everything else but why let Harry go with his father-in-law and wife? He just committed a terrible criminal act, killed a few officers including Lorca, the captain, multiple times though because of the time loop there is eventually no harm done. I just don’t get that ending. Lorca should have imprisoned him or killed him. Oh yeah and Ash Tyler walking around unshave like that – it’s not becoming of a Starfleet officer. It doesn’t make sense. 8 outta 10!