Over 30 years, more than 30 victims in different families have been brutally murdered by the fathers of each of these family units. The events unfold the same: the Christian father suddenly snaps, murdering his wife, followed by his children, anyone else within the home, and finally, himself.
At a glance, there are no connections between each family and no concrete evidence of a third party being involved. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), believes otherwise, as within each crime scene, a birthday greeting card is present. The cards are filled with coded occult symbols and signed with a single name: Longlegs.
Believing its young agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) to have psychic powers, or at the very least, some form of extrasensory perception, the FBI tasks Harker with leading the case and locating Longlegs (Nicolas Cage).
A force of nature
The global marketing push to hoist “Longlegs” as “the scariest movie ever” is quite an exaggeration. In 2024, it is not the scariest movie ever, but “Longlegs” is certainly a masterclass in horror.
Taking cues from the likes of David Lynch and Stanley Kubrick, writer-director Osgood Perkins has somehow crafted a horror film with intricate storytelling, powerful performances, and great cinematography to complement the film’s atmosphere of dread and terror.
If the aforementioned general plot does not sound similar, “Longlegs” shares certain DNA strains with “The Silence of the Lambs,” but Perkins takes the film in different, unexpected directions that will make the audience audibly gasp when the revelations begin dropping in the third act.
Forming the second part of the trifecta of terror is Cage, whose gonzo acting naturally elevates the film’s dread. After decades of playing a wide range of characters and stretching his acting to the most extreme ends, it only makes sense that Cage is finally playing a character like Longlegs.
Masked by the veil of makeup and prosthetics, the actor is unrecognizable if not for his manic acting, which he tweaks to be as unnerving as possible. Further adopting a sing-song speech mannerism, he comfortably eases into the character. The result for the viewer is abject terror, as Longlegs looks like something wearing a human as its skin.
As a kind of spiritual extension to her role in It Follows, Monroe plays Harker as a quiet, brooding FBI agent. For most of the film, Monroe’s Harker is disconnected or dissociative, completely removed from those around her, and laser-focused on her job, as she seems to harbor some unknown trauma involving her childhood and her mother.
When Cage’s Longlegs and Monroe’s Harker finally come face-to-face in the film’s strongest scene—also the only scene they share—that is liberally inspired by “The Silence of the Lambs,” the payout is excellent. Cage flexes his acting, while the story becomes more layered as the FBI investigation makes a hard pivot, which in turn feeds into the complexity of Harker’s past.
Doorway to Hell
The cinematography by Andres Arochi is used to great effect in building the tension and dread in “Longlegs,” and how Perkins does it is with doors, shooting them as a kind of primordial window or gateway that ratchets up the fear that something might be outside, waiting to come in, walk by, follow behind the characters as they walk in, or obscure the door frames.
It is an intentional filmmaking decision by Perkins, as from the start of the film, he deliberately trains the audience to focus on the doors due to how “Longlegs” is filmed with center framing, where every object and character are either in the middle of the screen or positioned symmetrically to the center.
The style helps that feeling of “looking in” rather than “watching,” as “Longlegs” creates an ominous feeling that you are peering into an otherworldly world that looks like ours, but no one moves or stands around like we would.
This is the general experience behind “Longlegs.” That feeling of unease and dread is like a blunt steel rod being slowly pushed into the base of your skull. You cannot turn your head to see what the object is or who is holding it, and nothing can be done except to sit there and let it dig deeper and deeper.
Though the film is not the “scariest movie ever” nor is it Perkins’ first rodeo in horror, it is certainly his most effective and the strongest, most realized horror film to come out in a long time.
