“It's, like, a long dream. And so dark. A world of dark. Like, a Nowhere, between here and there.” (Kiernan Shipka)
In a remote Pacific Northwest town, a young girl, traumatized, merging into an FBI agent who faces the murder of family connected to that trauma. That complex plot of Longlegs creates a cruel force, Longlegs himself, played masterfully by an unrecognizable Nicholas Cage, gives a memorable horror entry that respects audience intelligence enough to go it slow and spare the gory details until the resolution.
Agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) is tentative throughout as if the specter of the murder hangs heavily over her rigorous three-letter agency feeling Longlegs’ presence in a row house among many the FBI are surveilling. Lamentably, the intuition doesn’t play enough as the horror moves forward, the camera rarely leaves her troubled face.
The film’s flubs are few, such as her sweeping the house after her partner’s murder without backup. Yet the virtues are many, such as the lack of the usual tropes like jump scares and constant quick shots of the murderer. In other words, the approach of Longlegs is slow, menacing distribution until all is settled at the end.
It's reasonable to compare this chiller to The Silence of the Lambs with the rookie agent and challenging bad boy. Longlegs stands, so to speak, on its own especially as it denies the full exposition of motives or insanity revealed about Hannibal Lecter and less about Longlegs. The added turn of the screw is Longlegs’ being responsible for the murders of whole families, a step up from the usual single female.
Writer director Osgood’s screenplay has in common the seeming invulnerability of its malefactors and the greenhorn weakness of its heroines. With Cage playing a scary madman, Longlegs gives the aud a seasoned actor with a script that suggests more than it wants to reveal. Intellectually a satisfactory summer challenge.
“Daddy! Mommy! Un-make me, and save me from the hell of living!” Longlegs
Longlegs
Director: Oz Perkins (The Blackcoat’s Daughter)
Screenplay: Perkins
Cast: Maika Monroe (Independence Day), Nicholas Cage (Leaving Las Vegas)
Run Time: 1h 41 m
Rating: R
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts NPR’s It’s Movie Time and Cinema Classics as well as podcasts Back Talk and Double Take (recently listed by Feedspot as two of the ten best NPR Movie Podcasts) out of WCBE 90.5 FM, Columbus, Ohio. Contact him at JohnDeSando52@gmail.com