David W’s review published on Letterboxd:
The word “horror” comes from the Latin verb horrēre as well as from the Old French orrour, meaning “to bristle,” as in hairs stiffening on the body. A technical term for this “bristling” is piloerection, more commonly known as “goose bumps” or “gooseflesh”….or “horripilation.” Horrēre also means “to shudder, or shiver,” as with cold.
So, etymologically, at least, horror, as an emotional experience, is all about getting “the chills.”
Ah, the “chills.” A physiological staple of some—but hardly all—forms of horror art. In fact, getting the “chills” is most associated with the kinds of horror art that cater to experiences of the uncanny. And I for one am very susceptible to uncanny cinema. Brilliant films like The Innocents (1961), The Haunting (1963), Don't Look Now (1973), Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), and The Shining (1980) never fail to give me the chills. Not to mention The Babadook (2014), Midsommar (2019) and Saint Maud (2019), just to name a few more recent representatives.
So along comes Longlegs, the latest offering from one of “elevated” horror’s luminaries, Oz Perkins. Just the latest in a seemingly endless string of horror films over the last few years to be heralded as one of the scariest movies ever made. One of the scariest movies in years, huh? Like that abomination Skinamarink from two years ago? In fact, just like Skinamarink, Longlegs recalls Freud’s 1919 essay on the uncanny. Hell, Perkins even goes so far as to involve “ingeniously constructed dolls” in his mise-en-scène. Then there are the blatant stylistic parallels between Longlegs and The Shining (a film that successfully revels in its uncanny imagery, content, and sound). Yes, The Shining has inspired many entries into the “elevated” horror sweepstakes. But its influence on Longlegs shrieks out its obviousness, and not in a good way. Talk about the geometry of horror. I felt like I needed a protractor to watch Longlegs, as one static, obscenely symmetrical shot after another bored me into oblivion. Where’s some gratuitous steadicam footage when you need it?
But I digress. Longlegs clearly positions itself within the history of uncanny cinema. True, its aspirations don’t stop there, as it even more blatantly draws inspiration from classic horror thrillers like Silence of the Lambs and Seven. But since Longlegs is totally devoid of any actual thrills—and, it would seem, purposefully so—I suspect that Perkins’ primary interest is in the uncanny. Jen Yamato in a recent “Washington Post” column said as much when she described the film as “viscerally creepy.” Yeah, I think Perkins wants to send shivers and shudders through our bodies. He wants to “chill” us, not thrill us.
So, does he succeed? Not for this viewer. Not a chill to speak of. Not even the briefest of scares to enliven things. Some hilarity, yes, when the film isn’t straining itself to bore us. But not the kind of hilarity that intentionally draws upon the film’s morbidity, mind you. And not the kind of unpretentious, Lynchian hilarity that flows organically from the film’s surrealist stylings. Nah, this hilarity is largely an unintentional outgrowth of the filmmaker’s failed attempts to conjure the uncanny. Of course, the film’s ludicrously languid and, at times, uninventively inhuman dialogue doesn’t help. Neither does its mind-numbingly ridiculous FBI stylings. Or its booming, annoyingly banal soundtrack. Or the casting of highly-overrated Maika Monroe, whose dopily scrunched face and semi-catatonic line delivery make her previous horror work look downright manic by comparison.
And what are we to make of the casting of Nick Cage, whose sloppy facial prosthetics look like a cheap radiator lady knock-off? Is this Perkins’ attempt to take Cage’s inherent and woefully self-indulgent camp value and bootstep it into something unsettling, or, dare I say, uncanny? If so, it sadly fails. Cage brings some dynamism to the proceedings, but that isn’t saying much. And his act quickly wears thin. Like his makeup. Granted, his brief, roadside suitcase scene is laugh-out-loud hilarious. But other than that, the monotony of his one-note performance overwhelms. Monotonously so.
All these “scariest film ever” pronouncements of late have seriously begun to depress the horror aficionado in me. A decade ago, it looked like we were enjoying a horror art renaissance, with particular focus on reviving a kind of cinema of the uncanny. And I was primed, dammit, hoping to experience some new, perhaps even innovative, chills along the way. Now, I see the genre spinning its wheels, imitating imitations. And it seems like horror audiences are more desperate than ever to give benefit of the doubt to any slop they’re handed. I guess desperate times make for desperate pronouncements.
Still, I’ll be pathetically waiting until the next “scariest movie in years” is released, in a day or so, vainly hoping that this stalled renaissance can liberate its tires from the muddy groves it has worn.
