12/07/24

Cineworld, Edinburgh

A troubled FBI agent attempts to track down a mysterious killer. A series of bizarre clues links the killings to a whole list of young girls who have their birthday on the 14th of any given month. And the events play out in the remote backwoods of Oregon, where the landscape seems laden with the threat of unspecified terrors.

On paper at least, Longlegs has all the hallmarks of that increasingly common syndrome, Seenitallbefore. So it’s heartening that writer/director Oz Perkins has somehow managed to take all these familiar ingredients and cook up something that feels entirely original: a dark, smouldering slow-burn of a film that’s imbued with a relentless sensation of mounting dread.

It’s the 1990s: there are photographs of Bill Clinton on the FBI’s office wall and mobile phones haven’t happened yet. Agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe, last seen by B&B in the criminally ignored Watcher), is part of a team investigating a number of seemingly unrelated murders that go back to the 1970s. Her boss, Agent Carter (Blair Underwood), keeps tying to motivate her, but she is unresponsive to his approaches. She’s a quiet, brooding sort of person, with no apparent social life and strong links to her mother, Ruth (Alicia Witt), a backwoods bible-basher, who appears to be a total recluse.

It’s hardly a spoiler to mention that, back in her childhood, Lee had a bizarre encounter with the titular villain of the piece, played by a mesmerisingly scary Nicolas Cage, layered in prosthetics and sporting a long blonde wig. As Lee begins to discover a chain of bewildering clues, she starts to suspect that this man is somehow involved in all of those apparently random killings, even though evidence suggests that he was never there at the time…

Longlegs defies rational explanation. This is a film that exudes a powerful sense of disquiet from the opening scenes onwards, and manages to hold me spellbound throughout. A tangible sense of fear spills from every image and, unlike some recent horrors, this doesn’t depend on explicit carnage to make its point. Sure, there is violence here, but most of it happens offscreen, Perkins tapping into the age-old truth that what really scares an audience is what it doesn’t quite see. And there’s some stuff about worryingly life-like dolls that really amps up the unease.

If the eventual explanation for what’s been happening is decidedly off-the-wall, it matters not because if the raison d’etre of Longlegs is to unsettle the viewer ( and I strongly suspect that it is) then it delivers on that premise big time.

Looking back to our review of Watcher in November 2022, I note that I lament the fact that we are the only two viewers in the screening. Happily, that’s not the case with this one, which is well attended, probably because of the many five-star reviews the film has garnered from independent horror sites. I enjoy (if that’s the right word) the movie’s uncanny ability to reinvent and reinvigorate some decidedly tired genre tropes, to produce a film that feels like it’s actually breaking new ground. Monroe is compelling as the tortured protagonist and Cage, once again, submits a performance that is spectacularly unhinged. Wait till you hear him sing!

Longlegs won’t be for everyone. Those of a nervous disposition might prefer to look elsewhere. But those who like to shudder will want to check this one out.

4.6 stars

Philip Caveney