Longlegs Is A Cinematic Nightmare Well Worth Experiencing

Longlegs begins with bright white snow. It's a winter morning and a young girl has gone out to play in the frigid weather. This incredibly unnerving Osgood Perkins directorial effort is an extremely bleak exercise. However, unlike other horror movie attempts at "darkness", Perkins doesn't suffocate every image in minimal light and shaky-cam. Instead, Longlegs ingratiates viewers to its uniquely ominous vibes all that snow on the ground and reasonably bright lighting. Even here, evil emerges. That young girl's time outside is upended by the arrival of a mysterious adult man. The on-screen color palette and lighting suggest it's just a normal winter day. It's not. 

Unspeakable creepiness lurks in every corner of Longlegs. Clean-cut suburban neighborhoods are backdrops to slaughter. A hardware store can house a deeply unnerving customer/cashier interaction. Even the inside of one's car, a place other bleak horror films like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre depicted as a safe haven from serial killers, is here often a place for disturbing proclamations of mental anguish.

After that snowy prologue, the script by Perkins moves forward to the 1990s. Here, FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) is assigned a case in Oregon that's confounded this agency. A man known as the Longlegs killer (Nicolas Cage) has been responsible for several slayings over the last few decades. Problem is, save for cryptic letters he's sent after the killings, there's no evidence to tie him to these gruesome events. Where is the evidence for forced entry or accomplices? It's all so confounding. Harker, with her unusual gift for uncovering killers, could be the key to solving this crime spree. As she dives deeper into the case, more bizarre elements pile up. Is there a method to this madness? More pressingly, is there is, can that method be halted before more die at the hands of Longlegs?

Speaking of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (my pick for one of the scariest movies ever made), Longlegs reminded me of that Tobe Hooper feature (as well as David Lynch's Lost Highway) in being a rare horror movie that truly captured what it feels like to experience a nightmare. Other ultra-dark horror movies, like your typical Saw installment, are too "grounded" to truly emulate the inexplicable nature of a nightmare. Perkins, meanwhile, unabashedly embraces the absurd in this feature. Cage's Longlegs is prone to singing when intimidating people, while folks Harker is interrogating will just say the most grisly things without any prompting. The world of Longlegs isn't just grim. It's also quietly chaotic. There's no sense of control. It truly feels like your worst nightmares, where you're just strapped in for a ride your brain has concocted.

Delving deeper into specific plot points or third-act images that really accentuate that sensation would spoil the twists that make Longlegs such an evocative feature. What can be said is that the masterful visual scheme of the production works wonders in selling up that suffocatingly ominous atmosphere. Perkins and cinematographer Andrés Arochi tell the story of Harkins and Longlegs emphasizing sustained wide shots with ornate framing. There's impressive preciseness to the blocking that eerily contrasts with the unsettling storytelling material. Even just a simple conversation between Harker and the traumatized Carrie Anne Camera (Kiernan Shipka) demonstrates impressive detail in how it's composed. These two women are never shown on-screen together, they each occupy separate wide shots for this dialogue. Camera is seen from the front while Harker is viewed from a side-profile angle. It's a tiny touch, but one signifying how much distance there is between the characters. They're not just occupying different shots. The way they position themselves for the camera is incredibly different. 

Looking back on the film, it's also interesting how much Perkins emphasizes the aftermath of grisly chaos rather than explicitly showing it on-screen. This isn't uniformly true for the entire film, of course. We see rotting bodies, decapitated cow heads, one guy getting his head blown off, and one truly vicious set piece revolving around graphic bodily harm. However, viewers often learn about the aftermath of grisly slayings and suicides, hear brutal actions happening off-screen, or see everything leading up to a killing but the killing itself. It's a fascinating detail that's easy to lose track of (I certainly did until I sat down to write this review!), but one that initially puts you right in the headspace of Harker. Primarily, we are hearing second-hand information about unspeakable violence rather than witnessing it. This echoes how Harker is learning information about Longlegs killings from decades earlier. We're often on the same level as her when it comes to the carnage.

Plus, leaving things to the imagination really is so much more effective. Take an eerie sequence where the image of a slayed family is played against audio of that family's father making a 911 call just before he kills his loved ones. We never see blood splatter on the walls, but we hear their misery as the audience's eyes gaze on a photo of the family in happier times. Utilizing ambiguity and juxtaposition in this manner gives Longlegs truly distinctive scary sequences all of its own. This scene also epitomizes the feature's terrific and welcome emphasis on the imperfections of technology. The crackling of vintage phone calls is emphasized in the sound design, a small detail reinforcing the limitations of mid-1990s communications devices. However, there's something just innately unnerving about having that noise blaring through movie theater speakers. Similarly, washed-out colors in vintage Polaroid photographs accentuate the grisliness those images captured. 

Longlegs is a visual tour de force and the latest Osgood Perkins also flourishes as a showcase for deeply talented actors. Modern horror icon Maika Monroe makes for a terrific anchor as Harker, while Alicia Witt's supporting performance as Harker's mother just gets more and more captivating as the movie goes on. As for Nicolas Cage as Longlegs, I was mesmerized at how distinctly Cage-ian this performance is while also being utterly terrifying. Cage indulges in the big line deliveries (including extended singing!) he's so refined into an artform after decades of performing. Yet the sparse sound design & score, not to mention the idiosyncratic cinematography, reinforce the unsettling qualities of his acting. Cage's star persona is a launchpad into something totally original rather than a trait that overwhelms the figure's intimidating nature. 

Granted, his big swings, much like Longlegs as an entire movie, won't be for everyone. As for me, I couldn't get enough. I was clenching my fists in anxiety the entire time! Right from that snowy start, Longlegs weaves a captivating tale of inescapable darkness.