Blake Bergman "Various Spaghetti"’s review published on Letterboxd:
"Longlegs" is a 2024 horror thriller directed by Oz Perkins. The narrative of the film follows FBI agent Lee Harker as she unravels the case surrounding a killer who goes by the name of "Longlegs". As the case formally held no new leads leaving the Bureau perplexed on how to track down the killer, it is found that Harker has a bit of an anomaly, a psychic or increased intuitive build that gets the case rolling again. Circumstantially that is about as far as I can cohesively get without taking on a spoiler tag as the film is purposely built with a crisscross of twists and turns that has full intention to keep you on the edge of your seat.
As much as I did enjoy much of the experience, I do think that that this film's preview and marketing is pretty top tier for putting butts in seats making this a landslide success. The actual product isn't as magnanimous as you think you are going to get, but those previews are pretty insane. The most frighting film in decades isn't really the case, but maybe I'm just a bit hardened at this point. For myself, I am glad that I stepped into things cautiously and not being led blind by the previews, as I didn't want to completely crush my heightened my expectations when plummeting to earth. An easy correlation in comparison was the build around "Barbarian" (2022) a few years ago that had people going mad that it was the "most unique horror film they had ever seen". As a genre diver who digs all over the place, that phraseology automatically makes me question things, as "Barbarian" was fun at face value but easily wasn't reinventing any wheels. "X" (2022) is honestly another that I sort of look at sideways as well, thinking "What party did I miss?" as everyone else is clamoring that it's the greatest thing ever. "Pearl" (2022) was better but still we got to take the explosion of naming these films immaculate in the moment as a grain of salt. So, with my recent horror grievances (even though don't get me wrong, I enjoyed each film to a degree) on display, I saw the landslide of "Longlegs" support and I couldn't help but think "Oh no... here we go again".
Immediately when taking this film in, I have to commend Perkins in his ability to use tone and style. It's strange to use the word "gruesome" and the word "beautiful" in tandem, but "Longlegs" is absolutely excellent within its aesthetic. The atmosphere, the frame of the shot, the film's ability to bounce back and forth in styled formats and aspect ratios; all this is pure perfection in this film. Maybe there is some hokey blood splatter once in a great while, something that practical effects might have served better, but that's really with my trained eye being nitpicky here. This is a 5/5 movie in atmosphere and Oz Perkins has easily secured his legacy as a director in continual demand for years to come.
The story, while impactful and very strong in moments, does have a little downfall. Once again, I have to keep things vague here, but I do wish that the story structure was built a little differently. Some easy rewrites could have had this film honestly as one of the best horror dishes in a while. The killer reveal might be way too early, as the character of Longlegs was far more horrifying in ominous fashion. Once we come to meet Longlegs, I truly thought that Nicholas Cage did an excellent job as a bit of merger of Tiny Tim meets Alice Cooper with a dash Miss Piggy. It's late 70s Prog Rock meets Hagsploitation making his character unique and a blast as far as horror film fervor is concerned. I wanted that asshole to scream sing in his car as much as possible, making the character goofy in the most unsettling of ways. He really is a walking embodiment of the "Satanic Panic" in a nostalgic decadal lens.
As Cage is the most unique element of the film, the film should have taken its sweet time to crack that egg. The character of Lee Harker (played by Maika Monroe) is equally weird in a muted fashion, a quirky detective type that seems to be born for her role in the bureau. Her character was well built and played out, honestly as a character who could have been a mainstay in a grouping of serial killer films. An agent with the slight psychic touch that tracks down the most nefarious (and equally animated) criminals that the Bureau is trying to keep from the public eye sounds like a franchise goldmine to me.
I guess my one beef is that Perkins as a writer had to connect things narratively a little too much. Maybe this is me riding the "Silence of the Lambs" (1991) train with Clarice Starling, but as "Longlegs" is easily playing homage to that film, it is also easily different and could have been equally different just the same. There should be less need and interest to connect all these characters under the realm of circumstance. "Longlegs" does a good job of standing on its own two feet narratively but then discombobulates in the third act with way too much of an explainer course of connection. It ends things a bit too flat narratively, even if the actual moment to moment segments keeps excellent intensity and pace. In the end, I think it's less that I don't like the movie because I absolutely enjoy it, it's more that I know conditionally that it could have been so much more. It still gets a strong grade for its aesthetic; I just really wish this had the conductive energy to be a fresh new franchise on our hands. Connecting too many things might have done that in.
