The long and short of Longlegs

Director: Osgood Perkins Starring: Maika Monroe, Nicholas Cage, Blair Underwood, Alicia Witt Running Time: 101 minutes


The Blair Witch Project played coy about its credentials and rode the intrigue about it being ‘real’ all the way to the box office (leaving the undercompensated actors lost in the woods). Hitchcock insisted on keeping spoilers secure with an insistence that made accessories of his audience. There’s no better way to compel people than to tell them they have to know, to beg the question, and that applies equally to those starting a religion, spinning a mystery, or just taking part in the old-fashioned art of selling a movie ticket. The heavier the weight of the unknown, the bigger the thrill in the thriller – combine that with the propulsive power of the procedural and you have a spell for success.

In that spirit, Neon have promoted Longlegs with an impressive and effective air of secrecy; building hype through ominous trailers, clue-filled viral marketing and breathless early reviews that all but state that the movie is Actually Evil and is Genuinely Coming To Get You In Real Life. Is Longlegs the most terrifying movie of the year, was it sent from Hell? Not really and probably not, but Osgood Perkins’ latest thriller knows that what pulls you down the rabbit hole is the questions, not the answers.

From the first seconds of Longlegs we’re trapped without a full perspective, viewing a flashback through a 4:3 ratio, like an old family home movie with so much hidden and unspoken beyond the frame. Jumping ahead to the 90s, we meet Maika Monroe as FBI newbie Lee Harker, a quiet and clinical agent, who on her very first case, doesn’t blink at violent deaths and tracks down her charge with apparently psychic acumen. The FBI top brass, including Blair Underwood in fine form as Harker’s boss Agent Carter, decide to use this supernatural ability as a Hail Mary on a case that’s stumped them for decades.

This Stephen King-style thread is unfortunately lost as the story spirals into decoded messages, the occult, hypnotism, Satanism and other usual suspects of serial killer stories, but it does bring Harker into the main plot and on the path towards Longlegs; Nicholas Cage caked in makeup, a little Manson, a little Tiny Tim, a lot Marc Bolan and even a bit of Steve the Clown.

Carter enlists Harker to investigate disturbing crimes that have gone back decades, a series of murder-homicides where a parent, usually the father, kills their family and then themselves. Each horrific event is tied together by a birthday on the 14th, and a card left behind by Longlegs, the only physical evidence of anyone else on the scene. Harker is pulled deep into the case, but at least still finds time to check in with her mother Ruth (Alicia Witt), equally devout and delirious.

The look of Longlegs is meticulously designed to feel suffocating, lots of low angles, wide frames. The 90s décor, wood panelling, farmhouses and cabins all add to a feeling like Harker is buried six feet under, scratching at a surface that’s much further away than she thinks. Viewers might be one step ahead of the characters on the next plot beat, but the oppressive atmosphere will still have them wary about what’s coming next around the corner.

But that stifling feeling becomes frustrating, in fact, the film is at its best when it’s looser, lighter. There are moments of humour that are, dare we say, Lynchian, characters around Harker have an uncanny casualness about them even before possible mind control starts coming into it, Cage is in the kind of form that internet commentators always act like he isn’t doing on purpose. Some might find it too silly, some (me), will wish for more of these broad strokes. There’s one fantastic scene that perfectly flies against the film’s dread, doom and insularity, contrasting against the obsession, the insistence that there must be more to Longlegs, that things must proceed by the serial killers’ design. If you just treat him like a local weirdo, is he just a local weirdo? That’s an interesting angle, but it’s one of many here, and eventually Perkins’ loses too many, gets muddled and bangs hard into a bad case of Explain Too Much in the third act. All that work into making an uncanny nightmare wakes into an itemised dream journal, which feels like a waste. When you’re really pulled in by something so baffling, there’s nothing as unsatisfying as an actual answer. What’s at the bottom of a rabbit hole after all, than just, rabbits. Too often Longlegs goes towards those dazzling lights, before it undercuts the oddness with something straighter.

Odd and alienating, brutal and cynical, Longlegs is at its best at its loosest, but jerks often into linear and literal paths that don’t suit it. What could be outstandingly surreal ends up as solidly procedural, the kind of 3-star sleepy Sunday serial killer story that used to come out at the cinema all the time during the decade this film is set, and lives on now as too-eager true crime podcasts. Decoding the secret messages here reveals an A for effort, but unlike the titular killer, here there might be too many cards left on the table.

3 out of 5 stars (3 / 5)

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