Longlegs falls into the category of a movie whose advertising is almost too good for its own good. Once touted as having 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, and being called “the scariest movie in the last decade,” such boasts do no favors in setting realistic expectations for what is yet another weird and dark exercise in atmospheria from the great Osgood Perkins.
Most easily compared to such neo-classics as The Silence of the Lambs and Se7en, Longlegs follows FBI agent Lee Harker (Monroe), a pseudo-psychic detective on the hunt for the titular serial killer. Whether because of her abilities, or some sort of neuro-divergence, Harker is socially awkward and singularly minded, though more outwardly timid and fraught than your typical protagonist. Her boss, Agent Carter (Underwood), is her foil, more experienced and less burdened, though perhaps he drinks a little too much to escape the horrors of work and the mundanity of home. Together, they look for a serial killer who has been active for two decades, a murderer of families who leaves behind no evidence except for a lone note written in code, signed: Longlegs.
Director Osgood Perkins is an interesting guy (his father was the original Psycho himself, Anthony Perkins, who portrayed Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho). He has directed three other horror movies with middling IMDb user ratings, two of which I like quite a lot. I’m not sure why Longlegs got more attention than his other films except that Longlegs has Nicolas Cage in what may be one of his most disturbing performances to date. Editors Greg Ng and Graham Fortin do a great job of hinting at his utterly bizarre appearance, cutting away a split second earlier than you expect, saving you from the discomfort of having to look. And then they make you look, too long, the shot holds until your mind almost screams for a cut to something, anything else. Cage gives a performance to match. Unsettling and off-putting aren’t strong enough words.
Those words also match the overall aura of this ’90s set thriller. Perkins permeates Longlegs with an almost mesmeric miasma of dread. Told through Harker’s disorienting perspective, and intercut with flashes of her visions—some relating to her work, others, like red-tinged images of writhing snakes, hinting at something more sinister—there are narrative reasons for these stylistic choices, but they also left me feeling unmoored to the point of taking me out of it at times.
I love Perkins’ dark visions and the way he executes them, but Longlegs can feel a little overstuffed. Between the T. Rex music (love), the Zodiac-inspired cyphers, the dolls (did I forget to mention the dolls?), the visions, the (waves hands around) everything about Longlegs, it’s all good, but it’s all too much. A little self-editing can go a long way. Or maybe my expectations were set too high.
