Welcome back to the blog readers. As I have stated at nauseum on this blog, I have always had a love/hate relationship with horror films. I recently shared some of my sentiments in my last film review, but a truly great horror film has to not solely rely on jump scares to get me intrigued. The atmosphere has to be right, the tone has to be dark and moody, the performances have to be visceral, and there has to be a looming sense of danger. When I heard about this film and the type of reactions it was getting, I got excited. Would it live up to those initial reactions? Stick around to find out.
Longlegs was written and directed by Osgood Perkins. The film stars Maika Monroe, Nicolas Cage, Blair Underwood, Alicia Witt, Michelle Choi-Lee, and Dakota Daulby. In the film, an FBI agent is assigned to a case against an occult serial killer that she discovers is personal, and must race against the clock to prevent another murder from occurring.
Like I said in the intro, horror has been hit and miss for me, but this film seemed different. I only saw a little bit of marketing for this film, and the little bit I did see looked really tense and dark. Coming out of this film, I felt the same way I did when I saw Evil Dead Rise (2023) last year. I did need some time to digest what I saw, but I did really like what I saw. I adored the performances of Maika Monroe and Nicolas Cage, and I did like the vibes we got, although some of the visuals of the film were dark as shit.
I first want to talk about the performance of Maika Monroe. I cannot be dishonest and say I knew who she was before this film, but I definitely know who she is now. As the heartbeat of this film, Monroe gives a grounded and raw performance that will stick with you for the long run. Through her lens, we see two different sides to her. The first side is the honest FBI agent that she portrays, and the second is the broken person that she also is with a checkered past and someone who has seen some real crazy stuff. I also just found out that she was dating Joe Keery for 6 years. That is crazy in of itself. I will be checking her out in anything else she is in.
Next, we need to talk about the performance of Nicolas Cage. Nicolas Cage is the type of actor that has had two different careers. On one hand, he is known as the box office draw that won an Academy Award for his performance in Leaving Las Vegas (1995) and starred in projects like The Rock (1996), Con Air, Face/Off (both 1997), and the National Treasure (2004-07) series. The second half of his career has been weird, because most of the roles he has taken as of late have been very weird. Not as weird as this film though. Nicolas Cage was absolutely magnetic but completely terrifying as the role of the serial killer Longlegs. I still have his Longlegs voice in my head because of how it has resonated with me. I am just obsessed with how he has immersed himself in this role, and I know there is no room for a sequel, but I could appreciate a prequel explaining how he became Longlegs.
The atmosphere of the film is something that will definitely resonate with you long after the credits roll. There are normally a lot of things that I can stand in films, series, games, etc., but some of the things that I saw in this film made me a bit squeamish. First of all, a corpse with a shit ton of maggots was just everything you needed to know about what this film was trying to convey. And one other thing of note I want to talk about is the tone of this film. From the opening scene where we first "see" Longlegs, the scene is set, and the tone is set as well. There are a few moments of levity (and all of them came with Blair Underwood's character), but it is dark as hell with chilling music and visuals from the first scene to the final. Again, this is stuff that will stick with you afterwards. I know it has with me.
In conclusion, Longlegs is a dark and eerie film that stays that way for the duration, and features a pair of jarring and emotional performances from its two leads. Thank you all for reading, and I will see you for the next post.
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