Longlegs – if you don’t know what this is, don’t feel bad; the marketing is very obtuse in trying to reach the public consciousness. I heard fellow critics being very excited about seeing this film and wanting to know when we could see it. Their prayers were answered, and we saw. Man that was an experience – Longlegs, written & directed by Osgood Perkins (son of Anthony Perkins, star of Psycho) and starring Maika Monroe, Nicolas Cage, Blair Underwood, and Alicia Witt, is a Horror-Thriller about a rookie FBI Special Agent Lee Harker assigned to an unsolved case involving a serial killer known only by Longlegs. Things get more muddy when Lee might be more connected to the case than she knows, along with some possible supernatural events connected to the killer’s Satanic beliefs, leading to a thrilling conclusion. This film is carried effortlessly by its star, Monroe as Lee Harker. The film and character feel like its filling the desire of wanting a heroine like Clarice Sterling from Silence of the Lambs, but wonderfully, they went and made up something so far off their own that in this regard, it’s a delight.
Now, that’s not to say this film isn’t good. This might be the most tense film this year. The way Perkins builds this tension and an overwhelming sense of dread throughout the film is impressive while having those feelings doesn’t always feel good. He uses close-ups and focal lengths very well to put you into this space. The lighting in the film makes it feel like it’s getting hotter and hotter no matter where the characters are in the story, even to the point where it feels humid. This works with Monroe’s performance as a woman who feels like they are trying not to feel and disconnect themselves from humanity as she feels too much. She doesn’t fit and plays awkwardness with an authenticity I rarely see in most films. You’re totally with her as the hero of this story, and she has to discover things about herself as she gets deeper into the case. Underwood brings in a great performance as her FBI supervisor and investigation partner. He plays veteran hard-nosed cop well in this as he’s paired with this wunderkind he picked to end this killer’s reign of terror finally. Kiernan Shipka, who it took a while for me to recognize, gives a small but super creepy performance. Now Cage, who is unrecognizable in this film other than his creepy vocal performance, is a disturbing sight. The film goes out of its way to never give you a clear look at him for most of the film, so it has a great impact when it shows his entire face. The makeup folks killed it on this. He looks like a water-bloated corpse to me—just nastiness.
Cage’s presence and look are paired with the editing and use of the different aspect ratios to drive home this dread. Sometimes, the size of the frame on the screen doesn’t take up most of the screen and is meant to feel like photo slides. I didn’t clock in to see if the film was doing this to show time, but it does make it feel like going from the larger scale of certain scenes to where others feel like case presentation that you might see from the FBI back in the day in a meeting explaining the evidence. Those changes are noticeable but not distracting, keeping your attention focused more subconsciously. The only thing I didn’t care for with this film was the last 5-6 minutes of the film. It’s not bad, but like many horror films over the years, some things can happen that some viewers might not agree with. I’m one of those people with this film. With that, Longlegs is an excellent and unnerving crime horror movie that should make horror fans happy and give people a real experience.
Score: B+
