Stylish and very adult demon-possession drama set at a
Catholic boarding school in the dead of winter. There an old-fashioned fiend,
complete with two horns, inhabits a glowing basement coal furnace and uses a
hallway pay phone to command a gloomy freshman (Kiernan Shipka) to carry out
murderous sacrifices. Writer-director Oz Perkins keeps the gore factor
comparatively low, emphasizing instead slow-building psychological horror,
spooled out slowly through interlocking, time-shifting plot lines which also
take in the lives of another current student (Lucy Boynton) and a former one
(Emma Roberts). It eventually falls to a kindly priest (Greg Ellwand) to bring
some clarity to the mayhem, although the film is so vested in its deceptive ending;
Christian belief is only pro forma.
Watch out for: An occult
theme, knife violence with some gore, occasional profanities and fleeting crass
language.
Rated: A-III, adults; MPAA:
R
© Arlington Catholic Herald 2017