A new FBI agent tracks a strange serial killer in Osgood Perkins’s waking nightmare LONGLEGS. Revisit the 2024 hit before Keeper releases soon.
This review originally appeared on CityOfGeek.com. I’ve edited for updates and errors, but it mostly remains the same.
Do you know that feeling of waking up from a really good nightmare? You’re vaguely unnerved, off-kilter, and unsure of the strange turns and connections. The type of nightmare you want to discuss with your partner immediately, but realize in speaking about it, out of context, is a puzzle. You ache to go back to sleep further, to reenter the world you just left. Yes, it was scary and uncomfortable, but it’s strangely entrancing. But you can’t, leaving a haze of simmering terror troubling your mind, throwing off your day. That’s the effect of Longlegs.
Osgood Perkins’ new film is that nightmare in film form. As its ending credits scroll, you feel like you just experienced a waking nightmare. The story of a young FBI agent, a wonderfully esoteric Maika Monroe, searching for an enigmatic killer, Nicolas Cage in one of his strangest but just as commited performances, who somehow kills without entering the home, in the Oregonian wilds in the mid-90s is off-kilter, uncomfortable, and engaging with fantastic performances from Maika Monroe, Nic Cage, Blair Underwood, and Alicia Witt.
Longlegs is Thomas Harris’s The Silence of the Lambs, adapted by David Lynch. Twin Peaks, more specifically. Heck, a Twin Peaks meme group I’m subscribed to on Facebook went into the Black Lodge for the movie on release.
That’s not to silence the voice of writer-director Osgood Perkins. Across his career behind the camera, he’s previously created three outstanding films: Gretel & Hansel, The Blackcoat’s Daughter (aka February), and I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House. All three are twists on genre and convention; slow-burns of uncomfortable, isolated terror. Longlegs takes everything that has worked in those films to build a further strange, deliberate, and horrific tale.
The Silence of the Lambs is a touch point, but not a 100% comparison. Don’t forget the Lynch reference up there. The base is a police procedural, but the text is highly unconventional in how the storytelling is approached, performed, shot, and put together, especially in esoteric supernatural elements. If you want a pat, direct film with all the answers, Longlegs may not be for you.
If you’re in for a weird trip of a fever dream (or nightmare, as noted in the first paragraph), prepare for a wonderful discomfort. From the first scene, which looks ripped directly from a 70s sleazy serial killer flick found, cleaned up, and released by Vinegar Syndrome or Severin, the film slams into a weird journey. It’s a tone-setting scene for the ages, immediately telling the viewer to prepare for something unexpected.
I keep raving about the uncomfortable nature. This sets the tone and drives the film. I cannot give enough praise to cinematographer Andres Arochi. He builds a world of off-putting cold emptiness across several methods. His landscapes use negative space to great effect, drawing the eye across the frame looking for the details of a scare. Like Perkins’ The Blackcoat’s Daughter and Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House, the hidden and not-so-hidden things in the frame build tension in looking for them. I caught some, but apparently, there are many more.
The muted, washed-out color palette is downright disconcerting. The look is reminiscent of finding old photos of the people who lived in a house before you, snapshots found in a hidden box in the attic. The contents of the photographs may look mundane, but feel just a little off. Or sneaking a peek at crime scene photos of the 70s. The pervading feeling of “I shouldn’t be seeing this,” with an extra level of being under security yourself. As you watch the film, it feels like someone is watching you. It’s like falling into liminal space. (Side note: I did see it in 35mm – in a packed and appreciative 600-seat house – so it may look slightly different on digital).
In addition, Arochi shoots the film in angles that subconsciously unseat the viewer if they are not what they are used to. Without getting into the nitty-gritty, the straight-on shots of Monroe coming through centered doors and nearly walking into the camera are plentiful. You may see “Centered” and think Wes Anderson, but I’d slide more to Yorgos Lanthimos’s fish-eyed strangeness.
While the atmosphere of dread built by Perkins and Arochi does much of the heavy lifting, I’d be remiss in ignoring the story and the characters within.
The central mystery is highly engaging. Maika Monroe gives a suitably muted and distant performance as the young FBI agent is attached to a decades-long murder spree after her possibly psychic powers catch a different killer. It’s a showing that tells so much with quiet looks and pauses as she uses her unconventional methods to dig into the case, under the care of kind older agent Carter, a welcome Blair Underwood. They are looking for the titular Longlegs, as played by Cage. Over the past 30 years, he’s somehow been able to convince fathers to kill their families, leaving Zodiac-like ciphers as his only evidence. Adding to the oddity is Alicia Witt as Ruth, Lee’s agoraphobic, hoarder mother. Witt’s enigmatic performance is mesmerizing.
Much has been said about Nic Cage as the titular character. While his name is all over, his appearance has been kept under wraps in order to shock the audience (as did Monroe, who didn’t meet Cage until their characters came face-to-face). Under heavy makeup and glamming it up, he adds another level to the film, as over-the-edge as Monroe is subdued. While some moments are intentionally played for laughs (in a very dark comedy sort of way), he doesn’t overdo it. Cage is one of the few actors who can be both wild and restrained at the same time. It’s a skill, one Cage has used to his advantage in his best works. Despite these dark laughs, Longlegs himself is truly terrifying. Cage’s take is instantly iconic; perfect in look, mannerisms, and inflections. Some may grumble, “not enough Cage,” but he’s used just enough. Too much would ruin the intensity.
Cage gives the intensity of a feral cat. His presence looms across the film, present or not. Longlegsis an intense film of unknowing discomfort. It’s uneasy from the look, and unconventional storytelling and acting sit with the viewer. Another great flick from a new master of horror, a tone poem of oozed terror.