๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ (๐๐๐๐)
FBI agent Lee Harker is a gifted new recruit assigned to the unsolved case of an elusive serial killer. As the case takes complex turns, unearthing evidence of connections to occult practices, Harker discovers a personal connection to the merciless killer and must race against time to stop him before he strikes again.
In pursuit of a serial killer, an FBI agent uncovers a series of occult clues that she must solve to end his terrifying killing spree.
Perhaps it comes down to an individualโs own phobias, but I canโt say I experienced the profound sense of evil thatย Longlegsโs marketing campaign โ and its most enthusiastic advocates โ promised. I was told it would be likeย The Silence of the Lambs, or perhaps David Fincherโsย Zodiacย if it had been dragged direct out of Satanโs anus, with a performance by Nicolas Cage as a serial killer so traumatising it had to be shielded from the (non-paying) publicโs eyes. To be clear,ย itโs a fantastic ad campaign. And clearly a successful one. The film has accumulated the kind of buzz last afforded toย Ari Asterโsย Hereditaryย or David Robert Mitchellโsย It Follows.
But all this noise will, for a chunk of its audience, set up the wrong expectations. For my (perhaps already cursed) sensibilities,ย Longlegsย isnโt some unshakeable artefact of malevolence, and more like a knife in the back โ nasty, precise, and unexpected. From its first frame to its last, it shifts from a morbid chill to a freaky little satanic jaunt. Itโs as subtle as a magic trick, and a way for writer-director Osgood Perkins (son ofย Psychoย star Anthony, a useful heritage in this context) to have his cake and eat it, too.
Longlegsย both marinates in the disquieting legacy of real-life serial murders โ from Charles Mansonโs accomplices toย the Zodiac Killerโs ciphersย and the Weepy-Voiced Killerโs frantic phone calls โ and, in its latter stages, goes big and arch in a way that wouldnโt feel entirely out of place in one of those Seventies horrors with a title like โThe Devil is My Neighbour and Sometimes We Go Bowlingโ.
Cageโs serial killer looks creepy, but also like he could plausibly breed exotic shorthair cats. The actorโs unpredictability has always best served the descent into madness, and less so characters who have comfortably made themselves at home there (thatโs Willem Dafoeโs turf). And his performance here is at its best when he actually drops the โweirdโ affectations and speaks deeply and slowly, with a hellfire intensity.
He does so in an interview with FBI agent Lee Harker (It Followsโs Maika Monroe), whose acute perceptiveness has been tagged as a possible psychic ability, and whose interest in the case ultimately makes her the Clarice Starling to Longlegsโs Hannibal Lecter. On a slightly related note, this film is one of depressingly few horrors that can set a scene in a psychiatric hospital without cruelly and unnecessarily monsterising mental illness.
Longlegs has left coded, but signed, notes behind at a string of family annihilations. In each case, itโs clear the father wielded the weapon, before turning the weapon on himself. He must have been compelled in some way, but thereโs no sign of forced entry. Monroe makes for a fearsome investigator, crumpling the filmโs terrors up in a tight ball and holding them in her fist. Thereโs something different about her โ the bolted tight lines of her mouth, the slightly unfocused gaze, and the way she gently vibrates whenever sheโs forced to interact with other people. That makes her both the investigationโs greatest asset and its biggest target. Monroe settles into a state of constant awareness that rubs off on her audience.
Just donโt look: Maika Monroe in โLonglegsโย (Neon)
Longlegsย suggests its greatest scares, rather than reveal them. During the opening credits, there are flashes of the unfathomable โ crime scene photos, I assumed, though I couldnโt be sure. At one point, I swear I spotted something a lot more infernal. Whenever Lee is busy with her work, all unrolled maps and sprawled-out polaroids, Perkins carefully frames her so that sheโs always left with a couple of open, blurred doorways either side. To its viewers,ย Longlegsย whispers: have fun and fill in the gaps.
Dir: Osgood Perkins. Starring: Maika Monroe, Nicolas Cage, Blair Underwood, Alicia Witt, Michelle Choi-Lee, Dakota Daulby. 15, 101 mins.
โLonglegsโ is in cinemas from 12 July