Filmmakers try too hard in retro-slasher tale 'Blackcoat's Daughter'

I don't know what foley artists did to create the sound of a knife penetrating living flesh in Osgood Perkins' horror tale "The Blackcoat's Daughter," but its aural ickiness far exceeds the near-subliminal sounds of a poor casaba fruit being mercilessly stabbed to death on the soundtrack during the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho."

The close up of swirling water down a bathtub drain in "Blackcoat's Daughter" is no accidental homage to "Psycho." Perkins employs it as a perfectly Hitchcockian joke: He's the son of the late "Psycho" star Anthony Perkins.

It takes about 40 minutes before anything overtly supernatural occurs in "Blackcoat's Daughter." Until then, Elvis Perkins' nerve-nipping atonal score works up a flop sweat, desperately promising us something scary just around the corner. (And, yes, Elvis is Osgood's brother.)

When something scary, violent and gory finally occurs, Osgood Perkins dumps Hitchcockian subtlety (you never see the knife touch Janet Leigh's body in "Psycho") and goes full-tilt slasher a la Italian horror meisters Mario Bava and Dario Argento.

"Blackcoat's Daughter" takes place at a snowy Catholic girls school called Bramford where students Kat ("Mad Men" actress Kiernan Shipka) and Rose (Lucy Boynton) have been left in the care of two female school employees during a post-Valentine's Day winter break.

The girls say their parents have been delayed, but will pick them up soon.

Nearby in another location, a young woman named Joan (Emma Roberts) decides to take a walk on the wild side by wandering away from some sort of clinic. A middle-aged couple (James Remar, Lauren Holly) offer her a ride in their car, and, no surprise, their motives may not be as humanitarian as they seem.

These two stories merge as the pieces of the chronologically shifted plot come together in an unsettlingly retro, vervy-nervy fashion.

Of the cast, Shipka cuts up the scenery before chewing it. Her tingling transition from needy schoolgirl into demonic possession gives the movie its main horror street cred,

Nonetheless, these characters remain aloof and sketchy. They do not earn our sympathy or concern in a thriller where horror filmmakers simply try too hard.

It doesn't help that the Beelzebubian guest demon resembles Batman's shadow - with pipe cleaner ears.