Longlegs (2024)

Watched 7/12/24 (theater)

To find a movie this deeply uncommercial and simultaneously without pretension is rare. It has its issues but self-importance isn’t one of them—it’s often just a vibe-heavy, feel-bad procedural. Such unrestrained, in-your-face direction elevating an unremarkable script can sometimes go very wrong, but here they often gel to memorable effect, despite some doozy steps in the back half that I wish hadn’t left their footprints quite so obviously. Longlegs is a thick, juicy piece of mood. To steal one of George Lucas’ pretentious favorite terms, a “tone poem” of impending Hellfire. Although the Hellfire never hits quite as hard as its buildup would suggest, there are enough solidly discomforting bumps in the night to satisfy if not wholly electrify.

Maika Monroe has chosen yet another very internal role that she once again imbues with effortless realism as she becomes Special Agent Lee Harker. Harker has a brow-raising talent that she reveals early on in the film; one that makes her very valuable to her boss, played by an extremely necessary Blair Underwood, who I honestly could have used 30% more of. He saves the movie from being a complete downer and I don’t think it would be anywhere near as watchable without him. Every time Harker and this boss, Carter, interact on screen, the movie becomes yet another in a long line of very disturbing movies and television shows with a very fun, unlikely friendship at their center. Se7en, True Detective, Mindhunter…The list goes on. Monroe’s Harker and Underwood’s Carter are such a delightfully odd couple that the movie sometimes lags when they’re apart. Their chemistry is one of the best and brightest parts of an otherwise painstakingly dark film.

Now, as arduous as that darkness may be, it is the center-point, and it certainly acts as a feature opposed to a bug. Much like that of Se7en, the sun doesn’t shine in this world, literally or metaphorically. It’s a bad day to be law enforcement, or a satan worshiper, or a doll, or a nun. But it’s a good day to be a horror fan because if you felt like the bland, generic Blumhouse movies of the last year or two have had no sense of place, go out and see emerging indie titan Neon’s Longlegs. Director Oz Perkins, who also penned the script, doesn’t miss a beat in keeping you on your toes. From well-timed, patient jump scares (don’t worry, they are far from overused—there are only two) to creatively-staged slow reveals, Perkins manages to pour such a consistent sense of dread over his mannered, quiet script, that when the script oversteps, it’s saved by the world building of his malevolent alternate reality. Isolated cabins, cursed farms, and demonic basements populate this Hellscape that becomes the audience’s very immersive home for 100 minutes.

The script is often quite subtly thrilling until it gets too big for its own britches. The stylish direction is the reason to see this, but there are also some well-written lines early on, some compelling, if clearly surface-level, puzzling by the FBI agents, and a robust sense of mystery, not revealing too much early on. Unfortunately, that comes at the cost of a late exposition dump that to me was Perkins’ achilles heel. The film is so confidently ambiguous for the first hour-fifteen or so that I was genuinely disheartened when it decided to explain its frankly quite stupid logic, if you can even call it logic. That ambiguity makes Longlegs’ first half so novel and refreshing in a world where we have seemingly endless franchise entertainment that hand-holds its audiences to death these days. Despite some very inescapably creepy moments after this exposition explosion, I couldn’t help but feel a bit cheated out of the stripped-down bleakness that this had achieved with such splendor in its first two acts. I was longing for the version of Longlegs that doesn’t drop its terrifically atmospheric cloudiness to tell you that it’s a capital-m Movie with some dramatic “big reveals.”

But, that aside, any review would be silly not to mention Nicolas Cage, not quite being un-Nicolas Cage in his performance, but certainly taking a terrifyingly magnetic turn in the looks department. Without spoiling anything, he has never looked like this before and it’s a combination for the ages in horror movies to duet his signature over-exaggeration with such a ghastly costume job. It’s the kind of thing that would really, REALLY scare a child, and perhaps that’s the point in a movie that takes a dip into childhood innocence, and all of the different ways that it can be dashed. Of course the ways in which childhoods are dashed here are farfetched, but they still rattle home with enough fucked-up-ness to make you think twice about talking to strangers or trusting your parents too much. “Who SHOULD you trust” has never been so unsettling.

The baggy exposition here really broke me for a second—it felt almost studio-mandated despite this being an indie acquisition with no script notes, in reality. Way too much is answered and you unfortunately get laid bare the seams that hold together the dumb pulp at the center of it all. I wish we had gone into a limbo of sorts instead of such black and white, revelatory territory—that could have cemented this as an achievement in elemental horror. Instead it just comes off as ham-fisted overwriting for a little while. But then I remembered that my beloved Stephen King can’t do wrap-ups either and I realized that most of this is as good as, if not better than, many King stories, even with that rough exposition. So I felt better.

Oz Perkins and his cinematographer kick ass with their visuals. Monroe is almost predictably effective in her quietest, oddest role yet. Cage is creepy as all get-out. Blair Underwood is a stand-out-surprise good time and without giving away too much, Alicia DeWitt makes her presence felt, as well, in spades. Longlegs launches itself into far too obviously stupid waters for 15 minutes or so just when you want it to turn on the motor, and that’s undoubtedly frustrating. However, the larger directorial vision is so assured and the performances so uniformly spot-on that this one’s shortcomings feel very, well, short!, compared to the long legs that this sneaky little genre surprise should enjoy in the horror community.

7.75/10