Longlegs (2024) Neon/Horror-Thriller RT: 101 minutes Rated R (bloody violence, disturbing images, some language) Director: Osgood Perkins Screenplay: Osgood Perkins Music: Zilgi Cinematography: Andres Arochi Release date: July 12, 2024 (US) Cast: Maika Monroe, Nicolas Cage, Blair Underwood, Alicia Witt, Michelle Choi-Lee, Kiernan Shipka, Dakota Daulby, Jason Day, Lisa Chandler, Ava Kelders, Carmel Amit, Peter James Bryant, Lauren Acala, Maila Hosie.
Rating: *** ½
My review of the new horror-thriller Longlegs is going to be light on plot description. I wouldn’t dream of giving any of it away. It’s best if you go in knowing as little as possible. I will tell you this; it’s likely to get under your skin like no other film in a long time.
Longlegs is, for lack of a better term, totally f***ed up. Written and directed by Osgood Perkins (The Blackcoat’s Daughter), it’s a serial killer thriller in the vein of The Silence of the Lambs and Seven. It deals with a female rookie FBI agent hunting down a Satan-worshipping serial killer. Special Agent Lee Harker (Monroe, It Follows) is assigned the case by her supervisor Agent Carter (Underwood, Set It Off) after it’s revealed she has psychic abilities. The killer (Cage, Face/Off), who specializes in whole families, goes by the moniker Longlegs. He’s been at it for about 30 years. He never leaves behind a single shred of physical evidence other than letters written in some sort of code the feds haven’t been able to decipher. That’s about to change now that Harker is on the case.
Cage doesn’t have a lot of screen time in Longlegs (around ten minutes maybe), but he makes the most of it by turning in a gonzo performance as the elusive Satanic psycho. He goes double Nicolas Cage for this one. Looking and sounding like an albino Tiny Tim (the performer not the Dickens character), it is a wonder that the law didn’t catch up with this freak years ago.
As I’ve already indicated, Longlegs left me feeling unsettled which is understating the matter. I’ve seen many serial killer movies over the years, but very few have rattled me like this. It doesn’t play like a standard-issue thriller. It’s more like a fever dream. Therein lies an error on the part of Perkins. He keeps the nightmare vibe going for a good while then kind of blows it with a detailed expository dump. Nightmares aren’t supposed to make sense. They’re supposed to leave us feeling discombobulated. That’s why they freak us out. He overexplains. I realize it’s a small detail, but Longlegs would have been that much better had he left the audience with a few unanswered questions. He should have fully committed to the film’s weird factor.
Everything else in Longlegs is pretty spot-on. Monroe gives her best performance since 2014’s It Follows (I still haven’t seen God Is a Bullet) as Harker. She’s a woman with issues. She was raised by a single mother (Witt, Urban Legend) who constantly asks her daughter if she still says her prayers. Yes, Mom is a religious type. She actually resembles a middle-aged version of Carrie White (as played by Sissy Spacek in the original). They’re not particularly close. Looking at how they interact, it’s more like they’re just going through the mother-daughter motions. I would have to say this plays a big part in Harker’s psychological profile.
Perkins might have fumbled in one area, but he more than makes up for it in others. The way he frames his shots augments the feeling of uneasiness as Harker tries to find Longlegs before he strikes again. There are scenes where the feelings of dread and foreboding are increased by the fact that nothing’s happening. I love how he frames flashback scenes like they’re old home movies. He also nails the look of the film’s time period (circa 1996). He never actually establishes a year, but you know it’s the 90s because of the picture of President Clinton in Carter’s office.
I’m going to keep it short with this review. I don’t want to drop any spoilers. That would ruin it. I’ll leave it at this. If you like a good, weird, disturbing killer thriller, Longlegs is definitely the movie for you. It’s so effective, you might not even sleep that night. It is freaky as f***!
