The Unsettling Pleasure of Longlegs
Written by Raja (Kru’22)
“You could’ve played nice with me. But you didn’t. And that is the reason for all of this”
Enigmatic, brain-twisting, and bone-chilling is what I’d use to describe LONGLEGS as a movie. Most horror movies are made out of cheap jumpscares, gory kills, and over-the-top creepy plots. LONGLEGS shines for being genuinely scary and unsettling like no other horror release this year.
Let’s start things off with how amazing the world-building is in this movie like damn, from the start it already makes you gripping your seat and yet you are still made curious about what happened in the scene. The approach of this movie is “not so horror-ish” and more of a crime-thriller related to a weird cult or people, I would say. Since this movie still counts as a ”horror movie” there are some scares that are unexpected, but the shock value of this movie is satisfying and still makes you uncomfortable even when it’s over. Senses are the key to this movie; the hard-pounding sounds and visuals that give you goosebumps are the excellent points of the delivery of this movie. Special viewers who followed the whole marketing are going to be satisfied throughout the universe of the movie cause what everything that the NEON marketing team gave is just chef’s kiss.
“How About The Story?”, “Was It Worth The Hype?”, and “Is It On The Same Levels As Other Serial-Killer Movies?”
To me, the story sometimes works, but sometimes is underutilized. Osgood Perkins’ take on this classic psychological thriller — that reminisces Silence of The Lambs, Se7en, and Zodiac but also touches the world of demonic-cultist boogaloo that sets in the 90s are unique and sometimes fascinating of how he could take this genre and style pop-out. From art direction, character actions and personality traits are on point to the time setting and the culture era.
The scenario is quite simple: a detective that has a “half-psychic power” needs to solve a mysterious familicide that happened a couple of decades ago and is still going on. Most of the time, the story seems enough to me but what I really like and was hoping for more was the detective work. If you were expecting something on the same level as The Silence of the Lambs or even Se7en you’d probably be going to be disappointed due to how quick and straightforward the information is given to you. While the detective work is quite lacking, the hidden details and lore-building in the movie are remarkable. Some of my friends didn’t notice some hidden details throughout the movie that foreshadowed the events later on. To be honest even in the first watch and then dissecting the movie again the second time, you find something new again that could shock the audience. The use of flashbacks was amazing and it builds up the lore, leaving the audience wanting more and more — also connecting the event from the flashbacks to the main timeline just made you shocked and gave that “ohh” and “wow” moments.
Maika Monroe’s Lee Harker rendition of The Detective archetype is very well executed, from how awkward the social interactions and reactions to the twists and turns of her life , especially with how she shows how jarring and unsettling the situation is by the use of her emotions. On the other side, we have ‘Mr. Mysterious’ himself — Nicolas Cage as Longlegs — in every promotional material of the movie still being kept hidden until you watch the movie itself. My God, what a performance by him. From the beginning, I was fascinated by his acting flexibility. Even though he is crazy like in Mandy, his performance in this movie is jaw-dropping and even more mind-fucked by channeling his “inner mom” mental state. What I loved more than the two main characters were the side characters such as Blair Underwood’s Agent Carter who helps Lee’s journey, Alicia Witt’s outstanding performance as Ruth Harker, and that one scene of Kiernan Shipka as Carrie Anne gave me chills because how good the script is and her take as a “broken woman”.
Maybe this is quite special to me but the Opening Sequence steals the show. In my opinion, this is where LONGLEGS shines bright like the wintery white environment of the scene. The start of the movie is very dull — in a good way — by showing you we are going somewhere that seems “unsafe”. Using the bordered 4:3 ratio to make it seem shallow and very closed-quartered, the viewing visibility makes you claustrophobic. In this scene, YOU FEEL CONFUSED AND UNCALMED by someone coming to you slowly without any information, giving pumping tension from the build-up at the start and then to the shock factor of the movie that ought to start everything (that red screen and stretches back to 2.35:1 aspect ratio — props to the editor). Did I mention that Nicolas Cage sang you a Happy Birthday song? Yeah, the scene where everyone is shocked at how Cage’s performance is in the “Interrogation Scene” is also where you feel unsafe and scared about what’s going on next.
The satanic darkness with the sense of investigating this mysterious murder act story was not an issue to me, but some people didn’t feel satisfied by that. As for me, I loved the idea — it made LONGLEGS special. The big issue of this movie is the pacing. The first act and the second act were well-paced and enjoyable even though it was slow. From the intro scene to the transition to the second act was fine, but the third act was when everything turned into a bloody waterfall. Plot points are being showered hard on you and some people that I asked feel that the points are being shown too quickly and they can’t catch up. The momentum in the third act is also fast and heart-breaking due to everything being shown explicitly. Maybe it’s a horror movie thing that mostly has on average around 90–100 minutes of runtime and hence the 91-minute runtime of LONGLEGS, Perkins could have told and structured the third act better if there was more runtime.
As said in the marketing and the bold statement “The Best Horror Film Of The Year”- Is it really the best? It’s up on the debate and discussion over time and just enjoy this 90’s glam rock demonic investigation act of an event with a chilling performance by Maika and Cage’s primal crazy attitude in this sharp cut of an edgy cinematic horror experience.
