'Longlegs' Pulls Audiences Down into a Hellish Murder Mystery [Review]

​Take the satanic dread of The Blackcoat’s Daughter, blend it with a dash of The Silence of the Lambs, then toss in the most unsettling performance from Nic Cage to date, and you have Longlegs. Writer/director Oz Perkins’ occult serial killer film lures viewers into a hypnotic tale of murder and satanism, one that inches closer through the shadows on its way to a vicious conclusion that haunts like the fading remnants of a terrible nightmare. Like the filmmaker’s other films, it as layered as a human head, encouraging more than one sitting to peel back the flesh, the tissue, the bone, to get to the juicy pink morsel at the center. The strange complexity of it will likely keep some audiences at a distance, but those who are willing to give in to the darkness dripping off the frame will find an experience they won’t soon forget.
 
Seemingly set in the 90s during the Clinton administration, Agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) has been tasked with assisting Agent Carter (Blair Underwood) in a manhunt for a serial killer dubbed Longlegs (Cage) after it is discovered that she has a slight psychic ability. For decades, the madman has targeted families with little girls, striking near the child’s birthday. Once on the case, Harker finds herself in the sights of Longlegs, taking her down a path through an insidious mystery full of rot and decay.
 
If you’ve seen Perkins’ The Blackcoat’s Daughter, then you will have a good sense of the sort of dread that lurks just underneath the film like a pulsating tumor. From the moment we’re introduced to a pale as a corpse Nic Cage through to the bloody end, Longlegs oozes evil. Eerie shadows lurk in the background. Glowing eyes fill the darkness. Sinister whispers disrupt the deathly silence. What’s so alluring about Perkins’ latest is the way it makes the unnatural feel natural. Despite psychic detectives, a killer that looks like an ancient vampire, the occult, and other elements I won’t dare spoil here, Perkins somehow manages to walk a fine line just a step above your average, grounded murder mystery. The world he creates seems like our reality on the surface, but with minor things that feel off, like a bad dream. And that is what makes it so deeply unnerving.

Speaking of, you have never seen Cage as creepy as this. Doused in pounds of white make-up, the actor is unrecognizable in the role of Longlegs. His portrayal brings with it a sprinkle of the fearsomeness he had as Dracula in Renfield, as well as the discomforting nature of his unhinged Peter Loew from Vampire’s Kiss. While Cage’s unpredictability and quirky antics are perfect for the character, Longlegs isn’t without the occasional Cage-ism where he is let a little too far off leash, threatening to break the trance otherwise set by Perkins. Playing opposite him is Monroe in what is hands down one of her best performances. An awkward agent who has trouble fitting in with others, her discomfort around people and the little tics that come with that are not only engaging, but add a subtle humor that offers a much-needed break for the audience. Channeling Clarice from The Silence of the Lambs, we’re given the knowledge that she finds it difficult to be a woman in a male-dominated profession, though Perkins hardly gives that thread the weight that Demme’s classic procured. The focus instead turns more towards Harker’s relationship with her reclusive packrat of a religious mother (Alicia Witt) that helps us to understand her introverted personality as the result of a mother-daughter bond as cold as the winter setting. 
 
Like The Blackcoat’s Daughter, Longlegs is as much of a puzzle as the cryptic letters the killer leaves behind at each murder. Perkins doesn’t spoon-feed the audience. No, he melts that spoon over the hot flames of Hell. Various threads weave together into a complex spiderweb that will likely leave some dazed and confused the first go around, yet they all manage to come together neatly enough at the center. Connecting them is a devastating theme of how children are often sheltered to the horrors of the world, only to have the veil lifted in one traumatic, life-altering moment. What we thought we always knew breaks away beneath us, leaving nothing but a gaping void below. Longlegs is that void, and by the shocking end, it swallows you whole.
 
Small moments that break the trance aside, Perkins has once again delivered a haunting piece of cinema. Enthralling performances, sparse yet gruesome make-up effects and an unrelenting dread all make this a powerful bit of darkness lifted from the deepest depths of what scares us. This film is hellish. It is scary. It is damn good. Forget hailing Satan. Hail Longlegs.

Longlegs arrives in theaters July 12th from Neon. 

By Matt Konopka