Nic Cage (Mandy, Renfield) is back! Portraying the sinister powder wearing titular character Longlegs. More on him later. Longlegs is more than just another wild Nicholas Cage flick. There’s a lot of detail under the hood.
Spoiler warning. Skip to the last paragraph if you wish to remain fresh. Just know that on viewing Longlegs, it’s important to remember that nothing is initially as it seems while a lot is up to interpretation. There’s much to enjoy if you’re not trying to second guess the plot.
Maika Munroe (Watcher, God is a Bullet) is Lee Harker, a rookie FBI agent who is also a gifted clairvoyant. ‘Like someone tapping me on the shoulder and pointing the way’, as she describes the phenomenon. Because of her accurate intuition, Lee is assigned to the Longlegs case.
This puts Lee on a path of discovery and revelation as she uncovers the identity of Longlegs and her personal connection to the mysterious murders.
Marketing lines such as “the scariest serial killer movie of the last ten years” or comparing the film to Silence of the Lambs, is over-hyped and a disservice to what Longlegs is trying to achieve. Though writer and director Osgood Perkins (Gretel & Hansel) does want to scare you. Osgood works hard to creep under the skin via wide, lingering static shots and anxiety inducing framing. Often forcing the viewer to look over a subject’s shoulder for uncomfortably long periods of time. Somehow making everyday empty space feel both liminal and claustrophobic.
Perkins doubles down on this technique during flashback and monologue, framing the recounting of the past in 4:3 aspect ratio.
If you’re a spectacle horror fan, looking for jump scares and gore, you may find yourself disappointed during the one hour and forty minutes on offer. Perkins holds nobody’s hand through this slow exploration of investigation, witchcraft and the occult. This is a show, not tell experience, and every scene is full of texture and understated motivation and events. No jump scares, some ample gore effects in small moments. It all comes together tenuously in the end, but this might still serve to alienate mainstream audiences. Longlegs plods, taking as much time as Perkins wants to reach a point. Mixed reviews online since the film’s release affirm this.
Nicholas Cage’s performance as servant to the bloke downstairs is spectacularly on brand. Unpredictable, creepy and threatening. Excellent casting choice as it’s not often Cage gets to flex his talent as a villain. Maika Munroe also excels as Lee. Anxious, paranoid and tip toeing most scenes while her mental health is on the verge of collapse. Yet she pushes forward, driven by the detail in the investigation.
Longlegs is in cinemas now. Its uncompromising narrative style may detract a little, but it’s well worth the price of admission. 7/10 broken noses, cuckoo.
