Grade: B+
The marketing for Longlegs is cleverly deceptive. Trailers and commercials make it out to be a super-scary horror movie. I thought it was about insects, myself. It’s not, but the violins in the score often sound creepy-crawly. Longlegs is actually a slow-burning serial killer thriller in the vein of The Silence of the Lambs and all its copycats from the rest of that decade, particularly Se7en.
That doesn’t make it any less unsettling. I loved the atmosphere that director Osgood Perkins (son of Norman Bates himself, Anthony Perkins) creates. He likes to play around with the aspect ratio; sometimes it will start off boxy, and slowly widen – as if the movie is oozing on you, or growing all over you. Just when your eyes adjust to the red background of the opening credits, it cuts to black – and when your eyes get accustomed to that, they have to adjust again when the film proper begins.
Throughout Longlegs, Perkins trains us to constantly be looking in the background of a shot, even when there’s nothing to be seen. Sometimes there really is a figure moving back there, and sometimes we just think we saw something. It’s a power-of-suggestion technique similar to what David Fincher did with Se7en. Many who have seen the movie remember being shown somebody’s head in a box. We don’t see it. For a frame or two, we get a quick shot of the person’s head from a previous scene, and that has made so many people THINK they saw the disembodied version in the box.
Though there are some flashbacks to the 70s, most of Longlegs takes place in Oregon in the 1990s. The inevitable “Lambs” comparison comes with the introduction of a young female auburn-haired new FBI agent: Lee Harker (Maika Monroe). She has some psychic abilities, but it’s a sub-subplot that is brought up early on, then pretty much forgotten about. She is investigating a decades-long case of family murder-suicides throughout the state. Each crime scene has a note written in some kind of coding – all signed “Longlegs.” There is never any evidence that Longlegs (or anyone not in the family) was physically in the house.
Blair Underwood – as Agent Carter, Harker’s supervisor – has a deep, authoritative voice, which suits his character well. Monroe is compellingly watchable and listenable as Harker. I don’t know if it’s the sound design, her skill as an actress, or a combination of both, but her consonants really pop and dig deep into your soul. The character made me wonder if some mild autism is involved. That’s not meant as an insult; as someone on the spectrum, I detected possible Aspergeriness. I like Alicia Witt – always have. She plays Harker’s mother. I don’t want to say anything else, other than you will definitely get your Witt fix here. She has gone on record saying she won’t see the movie, but rather “leave Ruth for [the viewer] to watch.”
I am on the fence about Nicolas Cage’s performance as the title character. He has long hair, his face is under heavy prosthetics, and he does the Nicolas Cage thing. Very loud, insane, and over-the-top. Should Cage have maybe played it straight, with just his regular face? The actor who played the killer in Se7en was mostly soft and matter-of-fact. (He asked that his name not be included in the opening credits or any advertising, so I’m trying to respect that, in case you still don’t know after 29 years.) Either way, Cage isn’t in it that much. He’s more felt than seen, so whether or not it’s a “wrong” performance doesn’t matter too much. I loved a great deal of this movie.
The first 75% of Longlegs deserves the next higher grade – then unfortunately, the last act delivers a lengthy information/backstory dump that a) is unnecessary and unwanted, and b) takes the movie in a narrative direction I didn’t enjoy as much. But still, I can’t discount what came before, and where we end up isn’t too shabby. Longlegs earns its comparisons, and I’m glad it did well this weekend. There is something to the phrase “the power is in the mystery.” I’d have been fine if we never really found out why or how he did what he did. You could have him just be a weird dude, and leave it at that.
Grade: B+
Film Reviews by Mark 
Leave a reply to The Last Showgirl – Film Reviews by Mark Cancel reply