Longlegs is the closest we’ve come to an Alan Wake movie adaption since the release of the original game. Osgood Perkins thakes the reigns of a serial-killer movie with Silence of the Lambs style origins and twists it into something more unsettling thanks to an unnerving central performance from Nicholas Cage as dollmaker turned serial killer Longlegs, who has a Manson-esque connection to the occult and the ability to alter memories. It’s a sickeningly twisted start that gets deeper and deeper into the sinister, unexplained and surreal – with Maika Monroe’s Agent Lee Harker showing us her special ‘gift’ from the start, she is able to trace down an initial killer’s house by instinct even if it gets her partner killed. It’s chilling and a cold opening to witness but it sets the tone for 101 minutes of gruelling despair punctuated by a no-hope narrative.
Harker is almost autistic-coded in her lack of ability to understand small talk; making up for it with her ability to read a crime scene. It’s what makes her so appealing to Blair Underwood’s Agent Carter, “half-psychic is better than not psychic at all”, and he’s willing to lean into a cold case with all his might when it becomes a serial killer called Longlegs who gets dragged out of the past. His glam rock obsession gives the movie’s soundtrack its teeth and the white paint a sinister, creepy edge that would scare anyone. All murders are committed within the family with no signs of a forced entry – rendering the question, who could’ve done this? The telling sign seems to be the father, and the child is murdered nearabouts the 14th birthday in a pattern. It’s cold, it’s calculated – it’s reminiscent of Se7en as well as Twin Peaks, but to compare it to both would overinflate Longlegs’ worth, the third act is where things fall apart here and you’re left with a sinking feeling of “was that it?” when the hammerstroke falls – it’s over too quickly and not really worth all the excellent build up, clunky with exposition.
And the build-up is good – it’s the most I’ve ever seen a film this unflinchingly committed to its excellence, with Monroe quickly proving herself to be a master of the genre and her performances in Watcher and It Follows really give her strength. Her anti-social charms of Harker make her one of horror’s more compelling lead character creations – and a sign that more autistic-coded characters should be written into movies if Hollywood isn’t brave enough to make them openly on the spectrum. The sinisiter connection with the occult makes it a devastating reveal when we learn what has happened in Harker’s past, the sinister presence of Longlegs being an inevitable figure over her life and a potentially iconic horror villain is no tall order. “the man downstairs”, Longlegs refers to the devil by, whose influence is everywhere but never openly stated. Cage’s performance is stone-cold chilling and his most terrifyingly unhinged – he looked at Killer Bob and thought, “what could I have done to make this MORE?” with the amount of restraint that some of his shoutier performances have lacked – it’s a real resemblence of growth for Cage, who presents this role with a rare gravitas that delights in playing an oddball – it’s hard not to find anyone who isn’t unenrved by his singing of Happy Birthday, Agent Harker – or that chilling, Joker-esque performance in the prison when his painted face is shown to the FBI agents on duty.
The full dovetail into the supernatural may ultimately be Longlegs’ undoing, and if you can get past its over-hyped comparisons – a growing trend seems to be of late, everything can either be a 10/10 or a 0/10 with no middle ground when 6/10 films can exist and be perfectly entertaining on their own – and embrace the sinister occult thriller of it all, you’ll have a blast. Its small town rural Americana feels decidedly European folklore in its approach and that’s what makes it uniquely disconnected from the rest of its ilk. Expect to see a lot of Longlegs face paints this Halloween.
VERDICT: 7/10
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