BY LOUISA BENSON

Spoilers ahead.

After exhibiting her psychic abilities during an FBI operation, Agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) is assigned to the unsolved Longlegs Case, which has spanned twenty years, and is led by Agent Carter (Blair Underwood). A number of familicides have taken place across the Pacific Northwest, seemingly exacted by murderous fathers. The key link between the cases is that all the families have daughters, the daughters are around nine years of age, all their birthdays fall on or around the fourteenth of each month, and at the scene of each crime there is a coded letter signed neatly with the alias “Longlegs”. Harker knows more than she lets on, and we follow her as the film sharply changes from police procedural thriller to full-on supernatural horror.

‘Longlegs’ (2024, dir. Osgood Perkins) created quite the stir. Trailers had been sparse and cryptic, offering the barest of plot details and wholly concealing Nicolas Cage’s eponymous serial killer. Further fear and excitement was stirred by the marketing’s genius stroke in allowing the public to “interact” with the film. Simple billboards, in ominous red and black, were plastered with only a number to call to hear snippets of Longlegs’ high-pitched, tremulous voice. A fake website, https://thebirthdaymurders.net/, records the murders that take place in the film, designed as though it was made in the early days of the internet by a morbid, obsessive Oregonian. My own awareness came from a TikTok that heaped praise for these marketing efforts and piqued my interest with grand claims that ‘Longlegs’ was a cross of two iconic and highly accomplished thrillers, ‘Zodiac’ (2007, dir. David Fincher), and ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ (1991, dir. Jonathan Demme). It doesn’t hold a candle to either of them.

This sounds harsh. In parts, ‘Longlegs’ is deserving of some praise. It excels stylistically and sonically. The viewer is plunged into a 90’s Oregon, in the depths of winter. The isolation and barrenness of the state’s landscape, in which nobody else seems to reside besides protagonist Agent Lee Harker, her FBI colleagues, Longlegs, and her mother, is thoroughly unsettling. There is no respite for us indoors either. We are smothered in Harker’s claustrophobic wooden cabin, uncomfortable in the dimly lit FBI offices with their blood red flooring (ever watched by the grinning portrait of Bill Clinton) and nervous in Harker’s hoarding mother’s house, the place that would seem to be the epitome of all security, the family home - a belief which, after seeing the results of and witnessing the serial familicides by fathers influenced by Longlegs’ satanism, is totally destroyed.

Perkins’ employs a near constant barrage of wide to medium shots which are stuffed with alternate doors, staircases, passageways in which something sinister could be lurking. Our imaginations are ripened as Perkins manipulates us into fearing the unseen - for during no point of the runtime are we ever cheaply spooked by something or someone leaping out from these shadowy spots - which is arguably worse. This steady build of dread offers the viewer no opportunity for a release of the overflowing bank of tension we have acquired. As ever in any competent horror film, the sound design here is reliably scary. Pulsing, hollow hums murmur in the background, echoing the sound of Longlegs’ dolls’ metal, spherical brains which are infused with satanic energy. There are the usual staccato violins and distorted noises, but worst of all is Longlegs’ singing. As he screeches nonsensically, (you may have heard the “DADDY!!! MUMMY!!!” or “NOT ONCE! NOT TWICEEE!” audios online) Longlegs crescendos into a warped, booming voice that curdles the blood, and makes Nicolas Cage’s killer campy but absolutely terrifying.

Cage’s performance and character is really the pièce de résistance of a largely underwhelming film. Some reviewers have stated that once he finally makes his entry onto the screen our fear dissipates - I argue otherwise. In fact, the one and only “true” jump-scare of the film is reserved for the grand reveal of his face, and it is an apt, skilful choice. I flinched, others around me gasped, and it was hard not to shrink away, enveloped in the safety of my seat, for the rest of his performance. Longlegs is lanky, his hands are spiderish and gesticulating, and his face is a puffy, pale mess of botched plastic surgery. This swollen, not-quite-human face, whilst concealing Cage’s own distinctive features, is also deeply uncanny, a quality which expertly provokes our ingrained human reactions of fear and revulsion. Cage acts with typical exaggeration and eccentricity. This intensity makes Longlegs’ instability and capriciousness believable, perhaps the most chilling aspect of his character (besides his outward appearance) because it is what makes him human. He is more a part of “our” world than any malevolent entity will ever be - he is grimy, he drives a busted car, he throws hissy fits and whines. I am not stating that he is the most convincing character of all time, but his complexities are far more effective at scaring the audience than the impenetrable, dislocated calm of his malevolent dolls, or Satan.

However, these techniques - character, sound and style - which are deeply intertwined with the medium of horror are now (generally) so well attuned to tapping into audience’s fears that it is not difficult to make a frightening film, in the most rudimentary sense. It is easy to distort sound so that it unnerves the audience, to use wide shots to brew up suspicion, and to create a character that looks and acts in a superficially distressing way. The two former techniques are especially transient, and rarely burrow deeply into our minds after the screening. Now, with the movie over, we have stepped away from our “in-the-moment” horror at Longlegs, and can see that his character is far weaker in hindsight. In fact, is he genuinely scary, or is Longlegs just another role in Cage’s ever expanding folio of madcap characters in recent years (a John Wick-esque truffle hunter seeking vengeance on his pig’s captors (‘Pig’, 2021, dir. Michael Sarnoski); a caricature of himself (‘The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, 2022, dir. Tom Gormican); Dracula (‘Renfield’, 2023, dir. Chris Mackay))? Nuggets of information from an IndieWire article regarding the history of Longlegs’ character - such as his background as an ex-glam rocker from the 70s who did in fact sell his soul to the Devil (which was a genuine fear at the time - think Ozzy Osbourne and his deranged bat-munching), and that his pale complexion is actually face paint used to soften his botched surgeries - are arguably far more intriguing than the story of Longlegs we are presented with in the film, in which none of this characterisation is mentioned or alluded to. Maika Monroe does her best with Lee Harker, a character who, in retrospect, is similarly hollow. She is cold, taciturn, and – wow – psychic. Whilst these attributes are later weakly explained as the result of her enthralment under one of those dolls, we are left with a sketch of a character whom the viewer is forced to root for, merely because she is the protagonist and the sole person capable of figuring out what the hell is going on. Harker is no Clarice Starling, despite the comparisons. Yes, both are traumatised, ambitious, and closed-off, but Starling, on the other hand, is fleshed-out, believable and likeable, thanks to a perfectly paced and tightly plotted film with a substantial run-time.

The plotting and pace is this film’s most pronounced weakness. Key scenes are hurried through before any details can be absorbed or characters savoured. The interview, the first meeting between Longlegs and Harker since her childhood, is rushed, and falls flat. There is no real tension or any understanding or chemistry between these two characters because it is over so quickly. There is no pay off either, no mounting intrigue surrounding the mystery of and links between these familicides, nor regarding Longlegs’ intentions. Harker, when researching in the library, casually flicks to a page which essentially provides the key to the birthdates, thus when the next murder will occur, and Longlegs’ ties to satanism. Just like that. What a let down. Longlegs’ capture is similarly underwhelming (apparently a reference to John Doe’s subdued arrest in ‘Seven’ (1995, dir. David Fincher)). But, in reality, no chase means no satisfaction. And what of the conclusion, the very thing that our director has hurtled us towards? Is it akin to the first part of the film, the part which is grounded in reality and thus crafts a genuine, tangible sense of dread? Nope. Every horror cliche is crammed in…the dolls and the devil are introduced earlier, but now, good golly, we also have nuns, possessions and mummy issues. It is utterly ridiculous, but at least watching Monroe play Harker against this nonsense with devastating seriousness is amusing. Of course, FBI colleague Carter, the warm, (if stock) foil to Harker, becomes possessed. Of course, the very explicit mentions of his daughter’s birthday party are, in fact, the setting of this grand finish. And this finish is again so abrupt that both myself and the audience around me looked around in confusion as the lights turned on, some laughing, others sighing and swiftly leaving, exasperated and disappointed.

‘Longlegs’ as a horror movie undoubtedly has its moments of strength. The passion of its marketers and editors and production and set and costume designers is indeed commendable. It is also great to see this continued popularity for stand-alone horror films distributed by indie companies, in this case, Neon. But, at the end of the day, it’s just another one of these off-putting, half psychological horrors in the vein of A24, with nothing all that new to show and say. As stated before, it does terrify in the moment…but in no way does it haunt the viewer long after leaving the cinema.

Well maybe Nic Cage does - but the guy’s just scary on principle.