The modern horror film is missing a key ingredient that you seemed to always have in decades past—creepiness. Instead of taking your time and allowing dread and terror to hang around you, creeping inside of your brain, modern horror films rely so heavily on jump scares. Sure, that scares you in the moment, but it doesn’t lead to a truly horrifying experience. That’s where a film like Osgood Perkins’ frightening, wild, and endlessly dark “Longlegs” comes in.
Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) is a female FBI agent who has a knack for incredibly reliable hunches. Bordering on psychic, she is able to find people with seeming ease. So, her boss puts her on a cold case that has perplexed the agency for years—tracking down the killer known as Longlegs. Who isLonglegs? How does he actually commit his crimes? And where might he strike again? These are all questions that Harker attempts to solve.
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We have to begin with the elephant in the room—yes, this feels a bit like “Silence of the Lambs.” Clarice Starling and Lee Harker do share some similar attributes. They are both fairly new to the job, and they’re desperately trying to make names for themselves. And yes, when we do meet Longlegs, there is a bit of a Hannibal Lecter vibe. But if you’re convinced this is just “Silence of the Lambs”-esque with not much else going for it, you would be wrong.
Maika Monroe gives a career best performance, hands down. She plays Harker with very specific choices, and while they might be a bit difficult to grasp early on, by the end of the film you are fully engaged with her character and you begin to realize what she is attempting. And on the other end of the spectrum, you have Nicolas Cage as Longlegs. Look, it’s really difficult to talk about what makes Cage’s performance great without spoiling things. However, this very well could be a top five performance from Cage. He delivers a character who will creep into your brain and take up residence for well after you stop watching. And he does this with a face that is literally unrecognizable.
Outside of those performances, the true star of the show is Perkins’ direction. In the hands of another filmmaker, “Longlegs” could have been a pretty standard serial killer thriller. But it’s the choices Perkins makes with the editing, the switching aspect ratios, and the atmosphere created that make the film something truly special. There isn’t one jump scare to be found in this film, and that’s a miracle by modern standards. The frights comes from the incredibly disturbing imagery. To use a comparison, “Longlegs” is much more “Hereditary” than it is “The Conjuring.” When you watch this film, you are signing up for an experience that will crawl under your skin and potentially haunt your dreams.
Of course, this isn’t a perfect horror film. Honestly, there are moments that borderline take you out of the viewing experience. This happens, particularly, when it comes to the actual investigation at the heart of the film. There are some leaps taken that are full blown coincidences that might make you shake your head in disbelief. Let’s just say that a lot of the investigation comes from Harker and her hunches. That said, the rest of the film is so well-crafted that you will cut it some much-needed slack.
“Longlegs” is the type of horror film you just don’t see all that often from major studios. So many horror films nowadays lull you into a false sense of comfort so that the jump scares land better. You might be startled, and you may even scream, but were you truly scared? “Longlegs” is a film that will crawl under your skin and live there for 100 minutes. It will make you uncomfortable. You’ll squirm in your seat. You’ll want to close your eyes, but you can’t. You will feel a compulsion to watch and let it wash over you. It’s actually scary. [A-]
“Longlegs” is in theaters now.