We’re in the 1990’s, where FBI agent Lee Harker has been assigned to work on a case involving a series of murder-suicides. In each of these cases the father in the family has killed everyone else and then himself, but the big mystery is how each case also involves a letter written in Satanic coding, signed by “Longlegs“. If someone or something has influenced the fathers in these families to commit the murders, then how and why? Upon investigating, Lee discovers that in each family there’s been a 9 year old girl born on the 14th of each month. And all the murders occurred within six days before or after the birthday, which makes the dates of the murders form an occult triangle symbol on the calendar. One date is missing, though. And Lee receives a coded birthday card from Longlegs, and he threatens her that revealing the source of the code will end up getting her mother killed.
Longlegs is a horror thriller film written and directed by Osgood Perkins, starring Maika Monroe as FBI agent Lee Harker and Nicolas Cage as Longlegs. It was released in the U.S. on July 12, and have since grossed approx. $74 million worldwide on a budget under $10 million, making it Neon’s highest grossing film so far and the highest grossing horror film of 2024. It seems to be steadily creeping closer to surpass the box office total for last year’s indie horror hit Talk to Me. How it became such a massive success is not only favorable reviews from critics and audience, but a devilishly (no pun intended) clever marketing campaign: the promotional teasers have been effectively chilling and with taglines like “The best serial killer horror film since The Silence of the Lambs“ and “The scariest film of the decade“, then yeah…expectations were set high, and the hype got real. And we all know that too much hype can ruin the experience for some. Of course, Longlegs isn’t the first horror movie to suffer a little from extreme hype, Talk to Me from last year was also so hyped that a certain type of people were ready to release bash-reviews on YouTube in pure spite. And that’s something both of these movies have in common, aside from being really good movies.
With the movie premiering in the U.S. several weeks before we (finally) got the premiere here in Norway (which is August 2nd, but we got to see it on an early screening on July 31st), we couldn’t avoid having new videos and reviews popping up all over the place during those weeks of wait. We did our best to avoid major spoilers prior to watching it, and as always: lowered our expectations a bit. And we both had a great time in what was a fully booked auditorium. That’s actually a first in a very long time, that a screening we went to was full, so that’s something.
Visually, Longlegs look great (I mean the movie, not the actual character who looks like something dredged up from your deepest fever-induced nightmares. Hmmm…I guess that’s actually a compliment in this setting). The cinematography and clever use of color is pure art, and I really liked the use of 4:3 format for the flashback scenes. The use of sound and music adds the perfect layer of ominous vibe to the movie, created by Zilgi which is a pseudonym for Elvis Perkins, the director’s brother. Performances are strong, with Maika Monroe’s portrayal of the FBI agent Lee Harker who appears to be somewhere on the spectrum, but also possibly influenced in other ways which I will not spoil here. But the icing on this Devil’s Food Cake is without a doubt Nicolas Cage as Longlegs. While the titular character has a limited screentime, whenever he’s on screen his uncanny appearance and freakish behavior evokes a perplexing mix of feelings: it’s a blend of goofy, disturbing, and zany. He talks in a Tiny Tim-esque voice, heightening the creep factor a dozen notches.
Cage said that he drew inspiration from his own mother for this role, channeling his late mother’s mental health issues. She suffered from schizophrenia and depression throughout her life, and in an interview Cage stated:
“It was a deeply personal kind of performance for me because I grew up trying to cope with what she was going through. She would talk in terms that were kind of poetry. I didn’t know how else to describe it. I tried to put that in the Longlegs character because he’s really a tragic entity. He’s at the mercy of these voices that are talking to him and getting him to do these things“.
So yeah…all of that gives an even eerier and tragic vibe to the whole character. Speaking of mothers, Osgood Perkins also stated that Longlegs is his most personal film as of late, and an ode to his own mother and the secrets she kept about her husband’s sexuality and how “a mother can lie out of love“. Perkins’s father was Anthony Perkins (yep, the Psycho guy), and his mother’s name was Berry Berenson, who perished in the first plane to hit the World Trade Center. So yeah, a lot of dark and depressing stuff to take inspiration from here, that’s for sure.
The movie also seems to have planted a seed in certain religious and devil-fearing circles. On r/Christianity it seems like it’s about time to pray some more. “I don’t believe you can say hail Satan that many times and not call upon anything. I just haven’t felt right and I’ve been praying a lot since I watched the movie“. I don’t know about you guys…but if this was supposed to be some kind of deterrent from seeing the movie, it did at least have the exact opposite effect on us.
Longlegs, being the great horror movie it is, is probably best viewed if you don’t let your expectations elevate too high prior to watching it. It’s not going to make you faint, have a miscarriage, puke snakes or have the devil hitch a ride back with you from the theater. It’s just a good, slow-burn atmospheric horror movie that really hits the sweet spot on oppressive, nightmarish and nihilistic mood. Having seen and appreciated some of Perkins’s earlier movies is a plus, but not completely necessary as this is the most straightforward horror film I’ve seen from him thus far. But it is a slowburner, it does focus a lot more on atmosphere than narrative (in order to repeat myself from my review of Gretel & Hansel), and it is made in total Oz Perkins-vibe. So if you can appreciate movies like this, go see Longlegs and Hail Satan!
Writer and director: Oz Perkins
Country & year: USA/Canada, 2024
Actors: Maika Monroe, Nicolas Cage, Blair Underwood, Alicia Witt, Michelle Choi-Lee, Dakota Daulby, Lauren Acala, Kiernan Shipka, Maila Hosie, Jason William Day, Lisa Chandler, Ava Kelders
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt23468450/
