"Longlegs" Offers Up a Truly Creepy Experience
Or how to do horror right.
👿👿👿👿 (out of 👿👿👿👿👿)
Director: Osgood Perkins
Screenplay by: Osgood Perkins
Cinematography: Andrés Arochi Tinajero
Starring: Maika Monroe, Blair Underwood, Alicia Witt, Nicolas Cage
"Longlegs" is one of those films where I saw the trailer and immediately went, "YES." (Hilariously, when I first heard of a movie titled "Longlegs," I thought it was based on the 1912 novel by Jean Webster titled "Daddy-Long-Legs.") The trailer alone was creepy fun, which made the movie a must-see. I finally got around to watching the film, and while I don't agree with the assessment that the film is one of the scariest of the year/all time, I do think it's incredibly creepy and fantastically good.
"Longlegs" takes a page from the past (because everything old is eventually new again) by utilizing aspects of the Satanic Panic to create a creepy, atmospheric film. If you weren’t around to experience the Satanic Panic in real time, it was all-encompassing and took over the nation for most of the 1980s and part of the 1990s and is still an influence today. It was a wild time, is what I’m saying.
Focusing on a young female FBI agent in the early 1990s who is assigned to a major and disturbing case, "Longlegs" moves slowly but still manages to include a lot you might miss if you aren't paying careful attention. The FBI is after a killer—they think. Several families have died, but the murderer is always the father, who kills the family before taking their own life. However, at every crime scene, there is a note signed "Longlegs" in handwriting that doesn't belong to anyone in the family. So are these really cases of familicide, or is there something even darker at play? Who exactly is "Longlegs," and what role do they play in these tragedies? Of course, behind this basic premise of a possible serial killer at large lurks the supernatural because how is someone making men kill their families when there's no evidence of an extra person being in the house? And why does Lee Harker, the young FBI agent, seem to preternaturally know things she shouldn't?
Unfortunately, figuring out the mystery is fairly easy and a bit self-explanatory. The mystery of who Longlegs is and whether they have people working with them is pretty apparent early on, which is the film's major downfall. Honestly, the only one who doesn't seem to really know what’s going on is Harker, but I suppose it’s sometimes difficult to see what’s right in front of your face.
Maika Monroe as Harker gives an understated performance. Harker doesn't tend to talk a lot, and when she does, her delivery is very stripped back, as if she's disassociated from what's happening around her (though there is an apparent reason for this that is discovered later in the film). Nic Cage is Nic Cage. He's a little too over the top at times, and it felt as if there were a couple of extra scenes with him thrown in that were inconsequential and merely there to highlight...well, Cage being Cage at his finest. However, he's still creepy as fuck for much of the film, which is fun. Alicia Witt, as Harker's mother, doesn't get a ton of screen time, but she plays absent and naive perfectly. And Blair Underwood, as Harker's boss, is fantastic as the straight man to all the surrounding supernatural nonsense.
What truly makes the film, though, more than the plot or acting, is the cinematography. Because this takes place in the 1990s, the scenery is very much lots of muted colors, wooden panel walls everywhere (gods, remember that look?), dark corners where who knows what is lurking, and a grainy veneer over everything. Then, you have the plethora of shots that elongate the frame, making houses, doorways, and windows seem taller than they are or hallways longer than they should be, tying into the overall theme of the movie. Plus, Osgood Perkins throws in a few prominent shots of staircases, which ties into the whole "Mr. Downstairs" bit. Overall, the look of the film is claustrophobic and atmospheric, leaving you with an unsettled feeling that may not soon go away. This film is all about the vibes, without a doubt.
So, while "Longlegs" isn't the scariest horror movie ever made, it's well worth a watch purely for the feeling it will leave you with, the feeling that says you should double-check that the shadow in the corner of your darkened room really is just a coat over the back of a chair and not anything other.
What did you think of “Longlegs?” Let me know in the comments!