Longlegs (2024)
Directed by: Oz Perkins
Premise: An FBI agent (Maika Monroe) with a gift for intuition is assigned to investigate a serial killer. She discovers a connection between the killer and her own past.
What Works: A lot of serial killer movies were made in the 1990s. Longlegs is set in that decade and it channels those films, namely The Silence of the Lambs, but also supernatural mysteries from that time such as The X-Files, and Longlegs plays as an homage to those films and television shows but with a contemporary style. One of the key ingredients to a successful horror film is an atmosphere of dread. Longlegs has this in abundance. It’s very well crafted. There isn’t much violence in Longlegs but the movie has a threatening atmosphere, creating the impression that something terrible might happen at any moment. It’s a moody piece with a palpable sense of doom that increases as the picture proceeds. The visual style is cold and cinematographer Andres Arochi uses angles and lenses that are unsettling. The cinematic choices are very effective in framing the killer. A lot of the movie is set in the daytime but the killer’s face is obfuscated by his hair or he is presented at an angle that disguises his face. These scenes have a peculiar quality in which we see the killer and simultaneously do not see him. The suggestion pairs well with Nicolas Cage’s performance. This is Cage at eleven but the cinematic choices keep the character threatening and mysterious.
What Doesn’t: Many of the best scary films are informed by a psychological idea or a social issue. They achieve their impact by dramatizing the way the human experience is shaped by horror. Longlegs isn’t really about anything. The filmmakers depend almost entirely upon on the atmosphere to carry the picture. This makes for a movie that is stylish and creepy but is also rather empty. Longlegs hints that it is dealing with some broader theme such as the problem of evil, but there’s not much to it. The premise and story show influence of Exorcist III but that film engaged with its themes intelligently and created interesting and empathetic characters. Longlegs lacks any human warmth that would make the characters or the drama accessible. The plotting makes internal sense but it is also dramatically flat. Without a person or an idea at stake, Longlegs keeps viewers on the outside and there’s not much sense that anything is won, lost, or affirmed.
Bottom Line: Longlegs succeeds in being creepy and fans of 1990s serial killer and supernatural dramas may find it enjoyably familiar. There’s not much to the movie and more epicurean horror aficionados may be frustrated by Longlegs’ lack of substance.
Episode: #1005 (July 21, 2024)