RafaelIaquinta’s review published on Letterboxd:
“Do you still say your prayers?”
I do now, because holy fuck!
I’ve had a day to sit on this, and it’s actually haunting me. This movie was absolutely brilliant. I can picture these horrifying shots and moments from the movie, where just picturing what’s going on has me uneasy. I couldn’t sleep last night after watching this (I’m not lying to be hyperbolic and all that shit).
Maika Monroe is phenomenal in this movie. I think this easily her best work and her most interesting character. I found her incredibly captivating and engaging all the way throughout the film. And as a protagonist, she only becomes stronger and more compelling. I thought her work in this movie was astonishing and I was absolutely impressed by her.
The movie isn’t necessarily “scary”, but I say that, and there were plenty of scenes that had me scared. The movie is more so extremely creepy, cryptic, and uncomfortable. The entire movie felt like a jump scare, where they swell down the music, having you look in all directions, anticipating what’s about to jump out and startle you, but it never comes. That tense feeling of anticipation and dread is what I felt throughout the entire runtime of Longlegs. And speaking of jump scare, this movie has some really effective jump scares. One of them didn’t work for me at all (involving a doll), but two in particular really got me and those being the one in the opening and another involving a photograph.
But the reason I felt the way I did when I left that theater was because of Nicolas Cage as Longlegs. I’m gonna start by saying he had the perfect amount of screen time in this. There isn’t too much of him where it feels exhausting and the same can be said about the opposite. Because even the scenes Longlegs isn’t focusing of Nicolas Cage, you feel his presence EVERYWHERE throughout this movie (kind of like how they describe the Devil in this film). That looming, dreadful feeling that he could be watching or pop out of nowhere was so well done. Now, his face. What the fuck was that?! That was the creepiest fucking thing ever! The image of that face is forever imbedded in my brain! The voice, the laugh, the mannerisms. He was HORRIFYING! He was the scariest thing in this movie because of my god. Every time you see him, you feel creeped out and uneasy and uncomfortable. And I LOVE the fact that this movie used the character of Longlegs as an example of what serial killers really are. Serial killers are not Patrick Bateman or Michael Myers. They aren’t these alpha male symbols that people should look to for inspiration. They aren’t the smartest people in the room. They are LOSERS. Longlegs was a complete LOSER in this movie. And it added so much more realism to the skin of this movie. I keep picturing Longlegs at the end of the film tying someone up inside a house, and I keep imagining what it would be like to be tied up, completely defenseless, and stare that man in the face as he talks about how he’s gonna use you to kill your own family. That is fucking horrifying. And as soon as I walked into my house, I turned all the lights on and was paranoid as fuck. I haven’t felt that way since 28 Days Later (which some people would laugh at, but stfu. It’s my opinion).
The cinematography really helps this movie too. Every single shot, the focus of your attention is directed in the center of each shot, but your eyes are everywhere but the center of the shot. You’re looking around to try and see any sort of movement or demon or anything. There’s a scene where Maika Monroe is opening an envelope, and behind her is this doorframe to the left of the shot. And I was literally balled up in my chair going “fuck that doorframe!”.
As far as negatives, I don’t have much. I found the movie to be a little predictable by the end of it, but it also never felt like it was a twisty movie. I just think I found out what all was going on before I should’ve and that kinda bummed me out. But overall, this is a movie experience I won’t get very often and I am so glad I got it in Longlegs. This is a movie I won’t be able to shake for a while. It’s a movie that when I left, I felt like I had a huge weight on my chest because of what I had just experience. Words cannot describe my experience after the movie. But this is easily a masterpiece, and that’s not a word I throw around too often. 4.5/5.
