Longlegs

This review may contain spoilers!

 

Longlegs follows FBI agent Lee Harker as she joins a cold case investigation into the mysterious circumstances surrounding multiple family murders. The only consistent thread in all cases is a mysterious note in code, all signed with the word: 'Longlegs'.

 

Longlegs is an interesting film because you walk in ready for a horror film, and those elements are certainly present. But what it actually does really well is craft quite an off the wall psychological thriller about the case work at play. Watching Harker first establish herself as an officer by correctly identifying a perpetrator's hideout and then promptly watching her partner's brains blown out sets the stakes incredibly high. The intrigue of all this is that the investigation doesn't feel like it's necessarily being solved by a super sleuth, though Harker is exceptionally gifted. No, what makes this case so interesting to watch is that it feels like watching a hand run across until it finds a stray thread and pulls, and then you watch in morbid horror as it all just unravels. I also really commend Oz Perkins' work on crafting atmosphere, the tension in the first half of the film is palpable. The opening scene really sets the hooks into you and moments like Harker in her home alone at night feel nightmarish. The chilling moments set in early, leaving you nice intense for it all to come to a head.

I found the cinematography very fresh and creative, there are some shots that feel very washed out and lost in a phantasmal world. Yet, other parts of the film hold crisp bold imagery that feel extremely detailed, really drawing out the crime procedural look in a neat way. The way this film moves from aspect ratio in past or dream sequences to the present feels like an incredibly neat feature. I loved how well-timed the editing felt; it really moved to a considered pace. The score was haunting, and it got under my skin, my nails and wriggled deep into my brain. If there was anything that worked well, it was the haunting instrumentals that aided that atmosphere work.

 

Shafin Karim, who played the Clinical Doctor, is a one scene role that really makes a strong impression on the film; Karim relishes in his lines and draws an energy into his scenes that you just don't find anywhere else.

However, the best performance came from Blair Underwood, who played Agent Carter. There was a real hard edge to Agent Carter from the moment he arrived onscreen, a pensive wall of a man. Yet, what I liked about Underwood was that he really made his character connect with Harker, learn from her and see the potential. Carter comes to place his chips in one very specific basket, he sees an individual who is gifted and that he can trust and lends her power. Underwood starts to let his character become warm, charismatic and opens his family home to his partner in the case. I also loved watching Underwood work those investigative scenes, he felt like a real figure exploring one of the most disturbing criminal cases you have ever heard of. Even down to little bodily moments, moving to grow nauseous from a crime scene or staggering home slightly drunk, Underwood has a real mastery of self and how he moves. The end of the film doesn't serve him well, but he serves this movie very well.

This is possibly the most thoroughly marketed horror film of 2024 thus far, it has certainly been right at the forefront of horror fans' orbit. So leaving expectations at the door was initially a difficult one, but after a killer opening scene, you really get plugged right in and ready to go. Yet, I couldn't shake a weird feeling about why I wasn't loving the feature as we delved deeper into the first act. But as we started branching into the second, it became apparent: the characters and personal relationships felt devoid of genuine human connection. Harker feels completely drained of personal emotion until she needs to display fear, those involved in the case talk the case but struggle when the scene turns beyond that. Watching characters try to talk to one another in this is grating because you are waiting for a line to come that just feels like something someone would actually say. It doesn't help that Longlegs is a pretty unworthy antagonist, acting odd and bizarre to fit an actor's nature than really to build a unique role. There are whole moments where Longlegs feels like the director just leaving in something the actor did rather than capturing character or scene work. The final act of this film is a bit of a knife twist. A film that has felt like a real crime thriller yo-yos into a supernatural horror. But it just all shunts that way too far and too fast. If the Devil just made 'em all do it, then should I not just tune my brain off and go watch The Conjuring franchise? At least there, poorly concocted supernatural elements are the status quo. Here they are a poorly imagined attempt at saying "AHA!" to the audience. What you imagined there was some sense to the mystery before you? No, in American horror when we can't explain the evil in a satisfying way we always hide in the Devil. He's an easy antagonist to write, and better yet, Americans don't think too hard about him.

The grungy soundtrack felt like the film had awoken in a cold Rob Zombie-like sweat at times, and while Zombie's style holds appeal to some, I couldn't think of anything worse reflecting upon a piece of horror cinema.

Maika Monroe, who played Agent Lee Harker, just feels devoid of an emotional range and is a bland protagonist to follow; I struggled to believe in Harker as a character but very specifically as an FBI agent. Nicolas Cage, who played Longlegs, has been an eccentric figure for some time and that either makes or breaks a role and often a film; when I watched the character of Longlegs I only saw Cage and that is probably one of the biggest failures of the film. Alicia Witt, who played Ruth Harker, is too quick to lean into the psychotic mother shtick that the later turn loses its edge; Witt and Monroe seem entirely alien to each other and there's no semblance of mother/daughter at all. Michelle Choi-Lee, who played Agent Browning, feels like a background role with too much screen time; Choi-Lee is just too stoic in her scenes and fails to draw more from a moment of dialogue than what is on paper. Kiernan Shipka, who played Carrie Ann Camera, is a bit listless and off beat in this; Shipka wants to play a little crazy and that's transparent.

This is a film that feels like it's trying to do two very different things, while achieving neither particularly well. I would give Longlegs a 5.5/10.