“Longlegs” – Cage Delivers a Wild Performance in a Gripping, If Flawed, Detective Thriller | Review

There are movies you don’t know beforehand what to expect from. “Longlegs” was, for me, the clearest example. It seems to have all the potential to be one of the best horror movies of 2024, or even a “modern version of The Silence of the Lambs,” as some critics and viewers called it. Behind the film is one of the most talked-about directors in horror cinema (Osgood Perkins), it has one of the most prominent actresses in the horror genre in recent years (Maika Monroe) and also someone named Nicolas Cage, who has made a few films in his life. And if that weren’t enough, the film’s marketing campaign was excellent and raised expectations, with a fictitious phone number that anyone who called got to hear Longlegs’ creepy voice, and even a trailer that, mercifully, presents the atmosphere of the film and doesn’t ruin the entire movie.

So what’s the problem? Well, along with the hype surrounding “Longlegs,” there were complaints from a large portion of horror fans that it was overrated or even dull. Personally, I was less connected to Mr. Perkins’ previous works, and some of them even irritated me. You never know what to expect from Nicolas Cage, who has outstanding roles and a few jokes written in his name. And even a brilliant marketing campaign doesn’t mean the film will be good.

The good news is that, at least in most aspects, “Longlegs” proved to me that it deserves most of the superlatives. It’s a suspenseful and well-made film, with excellent performances from the cast and a director who knows his job. So what does it still lack to become a modern masterpiece that we can mention in the same breath as “The Silence of the Lambs,” one of the masterpieces of horror cinema?

A Film with an FBI Agent, a Serial Killer… and Many Open Questions: What Is Longlegs About?

When examining the plot summary of “Longlegs,” you can perhaps understand where the comparisons to that masterpiece, the only horror film to have won an Oscar to date, come from. The plot takes place in the 1990s and follows Lee Harker (superb Maika Monroe, “It Follows,” “The Guest,” “Greta,” “Watcher,” and “The Significant Other”), a young and rather introverted FBI agent. We don’t know too much about Harker beyond the fact that she has a somewhat shaky relationship with her mother (Alicia Witt, the original “Dune,” “Urban Legend,” “Vanilla Sky”). Oh, and she also has a very high intuition, some would even say a sixth sense, which allows her, for example, to know where a particular criminal is despite there being no evidence of it or to pass some test that examines intuition successfully.

Following that sixth sense, Harker receives from her boss, Agent Carter (Blair Underwood, “L.A. Law,” “In Treatment”), an old and unsolved case that spans several decades. In each case, a husband murdered his wife and children before committing suicide. The cases seem unsolvable or illogical because there were no signs of a break-in or other evidence that anyone else was in the house. Except for a cryptic note, written in the same handwriting, signed “Longlegs.”

And there’s also the birthday thing because, in each case, one of the girls in the family had a birthday that fell on the 14th of that month. Agent Harker quickly uses her skills to make progress in the case, later realizing she has some connection to these murders.

On the surface, “Longlegs” presents an unsolvable detective mystery. The viewer almost certainly knows who the main villain is because it’s already evident in the creepy opening scene (which takes place two decades earlier), and also because some come with prior knowledge that Nicolas Cage plays a psychopathic killer here, with rather scary white makeup and a wig. We try to think about how exactly these murders were possible. At a certain point, a suspicion of supernatural activity arises, perhaps related to particular objects we discover later in the plot. There is also the matter of collaboration because later, we realize that Longlegs, no matter how long his legs are (metaphorically or not), may get help from someone

The Enigma Of Oz Perkins

Osgood Perkins’ work behind the camera largely explains the superlatives he has received – at least on a technical level. Perkins, the son of horror legend Anthony Perkins (“Psycho”), manages to build the tension as the film progresses. He creates gradual horror but occasionally uses techniques considered “cheaper,” such as jump scares and sudden sound (in some cases, it works great, in others, less so). As in his previous films, Perkins shows a talent for choosing camera angles and building an interesting composition, contributing to the viewer’s discomfort and uncertainty. For example, Perkins makes us wonder in several cases whether something profound is in the frame, behind the heroine, waiting in the darkness. The answer is usually negative, but at least we created tension.

In the other aspects of the colonial work, we can broadly mark “V.” The soundtrack by a musician named Ziggy – the stage name of Elvis Perkins, Oz’s little brother – creates tension and brings us to the right mood.

Nicolas Cage In Yet Another Crazy Role

The success of a film like “Longlegs” in conveying the feeling of horror depends mainly on the actors’ performance. In my opinion, Maika Monroe is an excellent and quite diverse actress who deserves her definition as a modern “Final Girl,” “Scream Queen,” or just “a great actress who plays in many horror films.”. Monroe plays the role of the introverted and slightly strange agent in a subtle and noteworthy way, with a monotone tone that seems disconnected from the situation. She seems to understand well what the director expects her to show because her performance is steady and solid throughout the film. However, the character is a bit one-dimensional and does not develop enough throughout the film, so she becomes boring at a certain point. With more emotional depth, for example, some attempts to better explain her “strange” behavior, we could improve identification with the character.

Nicolas Cage has become a joke among horror fans in recent years, and in general, thanks to the fact that he makes too many films, some of which are bad. I personally have always liked Nick, even when he was part of films whose quality was problematic to very low (say, the terrible adaptation of “The Wicker Men” or “Willie’s Wonderland”), and certainly in recent years, when he seems to choose projects that suit him better. Not long ago, we wrote about the mediocre but enjoyable “Arcadian,” or the successful “Dream Scenario,” with Cage’s brilliant acting as a boring professor who becomes a celebrity after appearing in other people’s dreams.

In “Longlegs,” Cage goes even wilder, not just in the creepy visual appearance. He manages to create a terrifying character in his insanity, who looks like Nicolas Cage was born to play her, in his exaggerated and crazy acting. It’s a shame that his screen time is limited and that Perkins seems to mock the viewer when he chooses to show part of Longlegs out of frame (he does have long legs, after all) or cut the scene to a section that looks interesting. It works in creating the villains because the scariest monster is always the one we don’t see, and raises expectations for what’s next.

The problem is that the feeling is that the character could have been taken even further and made more integral to the film’s plot, for example, concerning the late encounter with Harker. This scene does present a crazy performance (in a positive way) by Cage, but not sparks as we can expect from the meeting between the two genius minds.

The film is worth seeing just for Nicolas Cage. This is not Anthony Hopkins’ performance in “The Silence of the Lambs,” who managed to build an unforgettable character in a screen time of something like 24 minutes, but indeed a performance that will satisfy Nicolas Cage fans and most horror fans in general. Or anyone who has ever dreamed of seeing him in a look resembling Some psycho, dressed as Marilyn Manson, in a Rob Zombie film, shouting “Hail Satan!” and singing in a way that probably wouldn’t send him to American Idol.

The Problems With Longlegs

I mentioned earlier that I had difficulty connecting with Perkins’ previous works. “February” (also known as “The Blackcoat’s Daughter”) presented an interesting idea – with some resembling the plot of “Longlegs” – with excellent performances from the cast (including Emma Roberts and Lucy Boynton), but was a bit clumsy and incomprehensible. “I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House,” a relatively slow ghost movie, was tedious in almost every aspect for me. And then there is “Gretel & Hansel,” that horror adaptation of the famous fairy tale, which was a massive flop in every way, in my opinion.

“Longlegs” is, in my opinion, the best of Perkins’s relatively short filmography, but it also has its problems. As a viewer of a detective story, I didn’t feel like I was a part of the mystery. Perkins’ choice (this time the screenwriter) to present Agent Harker’s high intuition, along with some flashbacks and memories that connected too well to the current investigation, meant that the meteoric progress in solving the mystery seemed a little random. There are a few too many plot holes and unexplained answers here. Well, including those that connect to the supernatural question and the identity of the potential collaborator with Longlegs, a question whose answer seems illogical on the one hand but also a bit predictable. Harker’s connection to the case also includes many question marks regarding credibility and plot logic.

The film is reminiscent of and sometimes even corresponds with canonical horror works. It has some similarities not only to “The Silence of the Lambs,” which presented a reasonably similar plot of a young FBI agent in a male environment tracking down an ingenious serial killer, but also “Seven,” “Zodiac,” “The Shining,” and others. There is a suburban atmosphere here that is very reminiscent of Stephen King until I expected to see Agent Harker riding a bicycle or running into someone with a balloon at a certain point. The dialogues of the young daughter with her mother, the religious fanatic, almost naturally take us to Brian De Palma’s masterpiece “Carrie.” In fact, at one point, I expected the mother to ask her daughter not to join the investigation because all the other detectives all gonna laugh at her.

Longlegs Presents: Psychosis Or Satanism?

As an investigation of complex murder cases, I felt that the plot here was a bit thin and unsatisfying, mainly around Harker’s discoveries and how she progressed in a religious and/or supernatural direction. The developments in the investigation seem too fast, which might be appropriate for Ed and Lorraine Warren’s investigations. The last part is contrary to what the film had built up before, in terms of style or subject matter, mainly because some of it is weird. Without too many spoilers, the film asks at one point if it could be that Satanism, aka “the man down there,” is the killer’s motive and also part of the mystery.

We’ve seen this combination of supernatural and demonic activity in other films as well – such as the problematic “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It” – but here, the solution of moving the ball to the Devil’s playing field seems a bit out of context. The ending is contrary to the film in terms of atmosphere and plot, some would say it opens more holes than it closes them, to the point that by the end credits, I was thinking to myself something like, “Dear Satan, please make the film’s resolution different from what we understand now.”

Without spoilers, the resolution here may be more appropriate for the cinematic universe of “The Conjuring” and “Annabelle.” It didn’t connect with me as much as an FBI thriller that pretends to be realistic and dark. Although the idea of ​​combining genres that seem contradictory is interesting, I don’t think Perkins really decided what he was aiming for – a problem that was also evident in some of his other films – and the film is a bit lacking.

If you consider the film’s many other topics – supernatural activity, demonic objects, mother-daughter relationships, male-female relationships, religion, and more – the film isn’t complex enough to answer them. It raises questions and themes, but they remain mainly hanging in the air. The film doesn’t connect to one complete work, even if it has many good points.

Should You Watch Longlegs?

We can say that “Longlegs” is an excellent film, even if not perfect. It deserves its box office success (about $127 million worldwide, showing it has some long legs even in the box office) and justifies the positive reviews it received (about 86% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes), so it’s worth setting aside a little more than an hour and a half in your schedule for it.

Equally important is that the film showed exactly Perkins Jr.’s talent and the problematic nature of his films. For me, at least at this point, there are more intriguing horror directors whose new works I’m counting the days until. Still, if this trend of improvement continues, Perkins’s subsequent films, one of them may be “The Monkey,” which we will write about soon, will prove to be justified by all the superlatives attached.

Longlegs – Frequently Asked Questions

When was Longlegs released? The official release date of the movie was July 12, 2024.

Who Directed Longlegs? Osgood (Oz) Perkins (“February,” “I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives In The House,” “Gretel & Hansel,” “The Monkey”) directed the film.

Who wrote Longlegs? As in most of his previous films, excluding “Gretel & Hansel,” Oz Perkins also wrote the script.

Is Longlegs based on a true story? No, but Perkins took inspiration from some real cases, including the Killing of JonBenét Ramsey in 1996.

Who Played in Longlegs? The cast of Longlegs includes horror current hit girl Maika Monroe as a young FBI agent and Nicholas Cage as the creepy villain. It also has Blair Underwood, Alicia Sitt, and Kiernan Shipka from “Totally Killer“

How long is Longlegs? Longlegs is not too long, with a running time of about 101 minutes.

Where was Longlegs filmed? In the United States. Principal photography took place in Vancouver.

What language is spoken in Longlegs? It is mostly English, with some fabulous singing and screams from Nick Cage.

What was the budget of Longlegs? Longlegs’s budget is approximately $ 22 million.

What are Longlegs box office numbers? Longlegs grossed almost 127 million dollars globally, making it a nice financial success.

What is the film’s MPAA Rating (Parents Guide)? Longlegs is rated R for some bloody violence, disturbing images, and some language.

What did the reviews say about Longlegs? The reviews of Longlegs are very positive. On IMDB, it has a 6.6/10 score. On Rotten Tomatoes (“Tomatometer”), about 86% of the professional critics gave it a positive review.

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