Longlegs: A Killer Thriller

This sinister tone grips the viewer right from the beginning. The opening sequence feels like an old home movie until it horrifyingly shifts. Perkins masterfully bridges true-crime aesthetics with eerie psychic phenomena through the introduction of rookie FBI agent Lee Harker, played by Maika Monroe. While combing through a nondescript suburban neighborhood with her partner, Harker's intuition leads her to believe their suspect is hiding in a random house. To everyone's surprise—except the audience—she's right.

For at least the first hour,  Longlegs ensnares the viewer with its twisted, tightening grip. Its impact is not just the result of expert jump scares—though it has a couple of those—or a creepy storyline. Instead, Perkins' direction and editing exude an unrelenting weirdness, sometimes extending ominous pauses, sometimes cutting away faster than anticipated.

Perkins presents a conventional narrative of a young female FBI agent on the trail of a grisly serial killer, echoing Silence of the Lambs, set against mundane backdrops—anonymous middle-class homes, deserted farms, blank suburban streets—in ways that edge into what might as well be another dimension. His off-kilter compositions and wide angles unnaturally stretch space, affecting both the plot and performances. Monroe portrays Lee Harker with jittery anxiety, delivering her lines in tense bursts, as if fearing to speak too long might reveal too much.

Harker delves into a series of murder-suicides where fathers massacre their families before turning on themselves. Eerie letters, penned in a Zodiac-like code and signed “Longlegs” appear at the crime scenes, hinting that one person might be behind it all. But what’s the link? The killings span 30 years. Is a malevolent force driving these people to madness? Is it hypnosis, or something more demonic and supernatural?

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And then there's Nicolas Cage as the titular madman. His appearances are brief but impactful—and, as is often the case with Cage, they teeter on the brink of parody. Much like the film, he is somewhat grounded by the magnificently grim atmosphere and the creeping sense of foreboding that emanate the sepia-toned visuals. This is a serial-killer mystery where the killer is already sort of known to us. We get a glimpse of Longlegs' face in an early, memorable scene, and while he doesn’t resemble Cage, the opening credits make it unmistakably clear: “Nicolas Cage as Longlegs.”

Image Source: https://www.denofgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Nicolas-Cage-in-Longlegs.jpg

Perkins ensures the viewer never feels comfortable, keeping us uneasy in a way that likely mirrors Harker’s disturbed psyche. Lee plunges into this grim mystery headfirst, with the tension escalating as she discovers that Longlegs not only knows her name and address but that they crossed paths once, long ago.

Longlegs struggles to maintain its eerily menacing tone. The movie’s echoing spaces—a desolate, snowy landscape and the gloomy confines of Lee’s home—create an unsettling atmosphere, enhanced by wily performances that keep the audience on edge. However, this tension is often undercut by strangely off-kilter comedy. Much of this humor resides in Longlegs himself, whom Nicolas Cage portrays as a rhyming-and-singing lunatic beneath a frizzed gray wig. In one particularly amusing scene, Longlegs enters a hardware store clad in what appear to be slippers and a housedress, resembling a bizarre combination of Buffalo Bill and Tootsie. He should have been a breeze to catch.

It’s a genuine feat that Longlegs maintains its sense of disorientation for as long as it does. Unfortunately, as with many horror movies, the film ultimately succumbs to the need to explain itself. The final act becomes mired in exposition, dumping a ton of information while simultaneously confusing us. Perkins struggles to navigate his story’s revelations while maintaining stylistic control. The tension between form and content, which initially enriched the film, becomes untenable. Our attention starts to drift as the narrative loses focus.

Horror thrives on helplessness in the face of the unknown, and the true masters of the form are unafraid to leave us hanging, without resolving too much. Longlegs is terrifying for much of its running time, skillfully playing on our fears and uncertainties. It should satisfy most genre fans who crave that spine-chilling experience. Yet, the greatness that seemed well within its grasp ultimately eludes it by the end. Despite its initial promise and moments of brilliance, Longlegs falls short of achieving a lasting impact.

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