George Napper’s review published on Letterboxd:
“He’s downstairs. Right under your feet.”
So far, 2024 has been a banner year for the horror genre, even compared to some excellent recent years since the mid-2010s. 'Longlegs' has unquestionably been the most hyped and well-marketed low-to-mid-budget horror movie of the year, and it mostly lives up to that reputation. It remains to be seen what shape the overall conversation among horror fans will take as we all finally see the film, but this is a movie that mostly gripped me as it was playing, but has frustratingly let me go a little bit since, even just within the two hours or so since the credits rolled. I realize this reaction is partly to do with the hype, but it's hard not to compare any given final product to the level of hype 'Longlegs' received.
Osgood Perkins tells a fairly simple story very, very well here, and he's helped by the considerable talents of Maika Monroe and Nicolas Cage. What starts as a riff on 'Silence of the Lambs' develops into something more textured than just a cat-and-mouse game, with subtle thematics about the culture of America throughout history. In this country, we are always encouraged to think in terms of leaders and followers, whether they be in political factions, religions, or cults. Monroe's nervy tension as young FBI agent Lee Harker becomes the film's tension, as she is put in the middle of many different iterations of said factions. Cage's titular serial killer is the quirkily frightening manifestation of decades of satanic panic and the isolation created by our vast masses of land. It's perfect that the film is set in Oregon, a state where decent-sized population centers can quickly give way to the sometimes eerily rural with just a ten-minute drive.
What holds 'Longlegs' back from excellence or perfection in my mind is that its simple narrative is never really hidden from the audience in any exciting or inviting way. I myself am not usually great at putting together certain kinds of mysteries, so while I was loving the twist here (and I do love it), I was also retracing the steps the film took to get there and realizing that it would be fairly obvious to someone who's a better puzzle-solver than me. Be that as it may, I was still happy to luxuriate in what the film was offering as a whole: true pitch-black vibes with slight winks and nods, stellar performances, and the above-average thematic core I spoke to. It's also visually stunning at several points, with smart uses of varying aspect ratios and slightly-fisheye lenses to simultaneously make us lean in and lull us to a gloomy sleep. It certainly casts a spell, but I suppose I just wanted that spell to linger longer.
P.S. — How could I love 'MaXXXine' and not fall head-over-heels for this as well, when Ti West's film certainly could be and has been accused of having a similarly simple narrative, and being less substantive than 'Longlegs'? I suppose I just had that much more fun with 'MaXXXine'. To quote David Letterman defending his barrage of satire aimed at Jay Leno during the Leno-Conan debacle, "I don't know! It's just fun!"
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