Keegan W’s review published on Letterboxd:
“Happy birthday to you!”
“Longlegs” is as disquieting as it is bewildering. And yet as it drifted in and out of logical coherence, I found myself thoroughly enjoying most every minute of the film.
The reason it worked for me is not because I found the performances to be profound transformations that demand celebration; it certainly wasn’t because I found the twists and turns to be particularly gratifying or shocking.
The reason it worked for me is kind of boring and totally arbitrary: I like procedural horror movies. I like detectives grappling with a case that may or may not be supernatural. I like serial killers that teeter the line between Buffalo Bill and Michael Myers, stories that feel like “Mindhunter” meets “Sinister.” I also thought a great deal of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s “Cure,” and as I already mentioned, “The Silence of the Lambs.”
It’s decidedly not as good as those films, but I’m drawn to that general formula and more than happy to forgive a number of things that didn’t work quite as well. Like, for instance, the entire last third of the film. Or, you know, a bunch of other shit.
Fun fact: Director Osgood Perkins is the son of none other than Norman Bates, Anthony Perkins.
2024 (Ranked)
"Are you still saying your prayers?"
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