Longlegs is a haunting serial killer that creates a constant panic in the audience, but leaves something to be desired by the end.
By Laari Ruby
July 20, 2024
“Longlegs” director Osgood Perkins clearly understands the techniques and tropes that make horror a captivating genre. He is able to use these standards to subvert audience expectations and instill a constant sense of dread, one that is never relieved. Visually, this film is stunning, but it falls short in terms of writing. The ending felt cliche and slightly rushed, and the resolution didn’t maintain the anxious tone of the rest of the film.
“Longlegs” follows FBI detective Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) as she tracks down a serial killer (Nic Cage) that has been operating for decades. Harker has an inexplicable psychic ability that allows her to operate quickly and easily decode Longlegs’ messages left at crime scenes. As she pulls on the threads of this expansive case, she finds herself personally connected to the killer, tearing open her past and her relationship with her mother.
Where “Longlegs” shines the most is in its unsettling anxious tone. Rather than being a horror movie that leans on jumpscares, bodily horror, or terror this film instead instills a constant sense of dread that is never resolved. Every technical aspect of this work contributes to making the viewer anticipate something and never easing up enough for the viewer to relax. The sound design highlights droning noises like air conditioning or wind, making the viewer acutely aware of every surrounding.
Very little violence or action actually takes place, though multiple times Harker encounters a scene where it feels imminent. The recurring anticipation of violence is, interestingly, just as effective in scaring the viewer as actual scare tactics. When Monroe clears a space, her breathing and heartbeat take over the audio, amplifying the primal reaction to fear. Instead of anyone jumping out of the dark rooms around her, you watch for minutes, waiting for anything to happen. The one time someone walks through the back of the frame it affirms that there really is something lurking in that dark corner. There is very little tension and release in this film, it holds back almost every time, letting you imagine the worst.
The cinematography of “Longlegs” was a stunning use of framing to set the tone. The camera played with deep space and darkness very well, with busy backgrounds, long hallways, and open doorways constantly fighting for your attention behind characters. Many shots had dark space where something could’ve been hiding, a plausible spot for a jumpscare to happen. It keeps the viewer’s attention all over the screen and unnerved over the possibilities.
Maika Monroe gives a stunning offbeat performance while leaving the audience little to find comfort in. She seems unable to form normal connections with other characters and has a sense of fear throughout the entire film. Cage also gives a strange performance, with a deranged demeanor that few could achieve so well. His presence in the film is interesting, given his lack of [experience] in horror roles. His presence on screen is undeniable though, he portrayed Longlegs very well and captured the mania of a satanic serial killer brilliantly.
The writing is the weakest point of “Longlegs.” So many common horror tropes are crammed into the film that it begins to feel cliche, especially as they pile on top of each other by the end. The use of dolls, demonic possession, psychic linkings, nuns, and psych wards were effective in their own right but began to compete with each other for significance. The film plays expertly with the mystery and darkness at the beginning and unwinds slowly through the middle. By the end of the film the pace was much faster to the point of rushing and the reveals of connections were a bit predictable. The ending leaves a lot of questions unanswered while also overexplaining itself. It attempts to leave you with a sense of mystery, but ultimately when you leave the theater that sense of dread is resolved. The killers are gone, the child is saved, and while the gun does fail to go off when pointed at the doll, there is no lingering sense of real threat. This is where “Longlegs” really falters. With a film that keeps you in its grasp the entire time, it completely fails to leave you with any aftershock.
The heavy reliance on satanic messaging also felt a bit cheap. There are many ways to make an audience feel threatened by evil, as the film had done constantly up to the end. But by the time the story was resolving, suddenly characters were saying “Hail Satan” into the camera. This was a confusing turn around at this point and it felt strange for the film to suddenly toe over the line of using satanic symbols as a narrative device to portray evil to suddenly feeling satanic itself. The film had done so well with the tone it had set that turning to such an extreme sort of imagery was very strange, and took me out of the experience.
“Longlegs” overall was a good watch and a very interesting contribution to the modern horror landscape. It is by no means dismissible due to its flaws, but it does call attention to the details that make a film good versus great.