Longlegs
A deeply unsettling horror film, Longlegs is currently being hailed as one of the best horror films of the decade. The opening sequence with Nicholas Cage before the title card sets the tone of the movie perfectly, putting the audience on edge. We are then introduced to FBI Agent Lee Harker played by Maika Monroe, who has a type of intuition that alerts her to evil auras. Because of this she is placed on a decades long serial killer case, Longlegs. All of the Longlegs murder cases involve a father suddenly snapping, killing his whole family, and eventually himself. The only thing left behind is a letter written in code, if these letters weren’t left behind there would be no knowledge that Longlegs exists at all. Monroe’s character finds herself being dragged further and further into this case, and the evil that lies at the center of it.
Longlegs is a movie best seen with little to no knowledge of what it’s about. The viral marketing refuses to show Nicholas Cage’s character to great effect. The first time his face is seen, complete with makeup and prosthetics, Cage is nearly unrecognizable. He completely disappears behind this role, and he delivers a stunningly unsettling performance. At times wild and awkward, the theater I was in laughed at the serial killer’s antics, but this felt almost as a knee jerk response, if one did not laugh they would have to face the awful realty that facing this man in the real world would surely trigger some type of fight or flight response.
A lot of the disturbing factor of this film comes from the way it is shot and directed. The film is heavily influenced by films such as Zodiac and Silence of the Lambs, with a few shots that seemed to even harken back to David Lynch’s Twin Peaks. Wide shots that focus on Monroe’s character and other’s she interacts with leave a lot of the background to be investigated, leading viewers to frantically be searching behind the characters trying to catch some type of eeriness there, hoping to not be scared by an encroaching jump scare. The film also makes use of old horror film tricks, cutting creepy imagery in between shots as Monroe picks up on dangerous auras around her. This, as well as shots that make use of candlelight, highlighting shadows that are created across a set create a tone that lingers throughout the entire film. The characters never feel alone, and as the film progresses, neither does the audience.
Monroe is undeniable as a modern horror star in this film, following up on her other appearances in It Follows and Watcher. Harker is and incredibly lonely character and grows more and more disturbed as the film goes on. Her expressions slowly change throughout the entire film until it resolves on something dreadful as she processes the trauma of her prior case that landed her a spot on the Longlegs investigation, and digs further into her own personal life and relationships in searching for this serial killer.
Director Osgood Perkins, son of Anthony Perkins best known for his role in Hitchcock’s Psycho, has talked a lot about the themes of this movie after its release. He asserts that the film is really about the secrets and lies parents keep from their kids, usually not in any type of malicious fashion, but in a way that ultimately hurts them as they grow older. He blends a lot of this theme throughout the film, while still delivering on the horror aspect of it. It’s a very good balance between actual horror and the supernatural, and elevated horror which productions such as A24 have made extremely popular in the last decade. It has the deeper themes that one can inspect and think about, but it also has a straight forward plot and many mysteries involving that that someone can become engrossed in.
The last third of this film might be the weakest, as a long monologue is given to describe most of the events leading up to the film. The exposition dump both answers a lot of questions while simultaneously not giving enough, but the ultimate pay off of the ending leaving our characters in an even more horrified state than at the beginning will stick with an audience. There’s still over five years left in this decade, but Longlegs has a good chance at sticking out against most of the films that are still yet to come. A deliciously evil and unsettling experience, it will leave viewers thinking about it for days to come.