I decided to go into Longlegs blind. It wasn’t until about a month before the release that the press company put out a synopsis. I didn’t watch any trailers. I didn’t read the article in Fangoria. All I knew about it was that Maika Monroe plays a detective tracking a killer named Longlegs, played by Nicolas Cage.
Monroe plays Lee Harker, a young FBI agent who seems to have some psychic powers. She is brought in on the Longlegs case, a case which has had victims for the last 30 years, in which someone has been forcing families into killing themselves, and leaving scary, coded messages at the scene. The forensics promise that the culprit is the father of each of these vanilla families, but the notes, signed Longlegs, suggest otherwise. To say too much more would be saying too much, but there are many more layers here.
The film left me feeling uneasy, something which never happens. Longlegs is demented, diabolically strange, and it has one of cinema’s creepiest villains. Director Osgood Perkins (son of Norman Bates himself, Anthony Perkins) doesn’t go out of his way to provide lots of guts and gore; the promise of Satanic mishigas is all that is needed to make the film feel… icky (good icky). The cinematography, by Mexican audiovisual artist Andrés Arochi, is chillingly unsettling. The landscapes are washed out; all of the houses are plain white against cloudy, stormy skies. It felt like there were ghosts everywhere.
A lot of people have compared Longlegs to The Silence of the Lambs. I can see that a bit, with the FBI angle and the insane killer. But Longlegs is more ridiculous than Buffalo Bill. Bill is wholly human, whereas Longlegs leaves some question as to how human he is; how much the Satanic aspects contributed to Longlegs (is he a demon? Is he a chimera? Is he just a sick, sick man?). But somehow, I feel like Longlegs is more sinister than Silence of the Lambs. Maybe it is because I saw Longlegs in a theater, with the darkness around me and the sound perfectly calibrated.
The acting across the board is phenomenal. Maika Monroe plays Harker as neurodivergent, something that is well-portrayed by the way she answers questions in brief, far too honest ways; avoids eye contact; and is generally more than just “awkward.”
Obviously, the star of the show is Nicolas Cage, who is virtually unrecognizable beneath his Longlegs makeup. No one else could have portrayed Longlegs with as much diabolical craziness. Is he just a man, or something more? It’s hard to say, under heavy prosthetics makeup — which Longlegs makes scarier under thick pancake makeup. With long white hair and layers upon layers of clothing, I honestly didn’t recognize him as Nic Cage at first. Luckily, the opening credits specify that Nicolas Cage is Longlegs.
Some of the layers ultimately led nowhere. For example, Harker’s possible psychic powers seemed to be important in the opening of the film, but about 20 minutes in, it was never broached again. They never explained how Harker was able to decode the letters in a matter of minutes, nor were any of the Satanic clues ever given much time or attention.
Despite all these minor details, there was a satisfying conclusion at the end. A touch predictable, perhaps, but satisfying nonetheless. Longlegs is a hauntingly creepy film, one that should make its way onto your viewing schedule.
[See also: An interview with Longlegs director Osgood Perkins. —Screenopolis]
