Nicolas Cage

The Surfer

18/05/25

Cineworld, Edinburgh

The Surfer, written by Thomas Martin and directed by Lorcan Finnegan, is an Irish-Australian collaboration, filmed on location in beautiful Yallingup. Cinematographer Radek Ladczuk perfectly captures the town’s glorious coastline, all bright blue waves and golden sands shimmering in a sultry heat. However, despite initial appearances, this isn’t a story destined to gladden the hearts of the tourist board Down Under. Instead, it falls firmly into that sub-genre of ‘Unsettling Aussie Small Town’ films – helmed by Wake in Fright and encompassing everything from Picnic at Hanging Rock to The Royal Hotel – and acts as a warning to stay away.

Indeed, the warning here is explicit. As The Surfer (Nicolas Cage) strides confidently towards the water with his son (Finn Little), keen to share his childhood experiences of this particular beach, he is told in no uncertain terms that they’re not welcome: “Don’t live here, don’t surf here.” The Surfer’s protestations that he grew up in the town are met with indifference. “Don’t live here, don’t surf here,” the hostile gang of men repeat. And, in case he’s not quite got the message, “Fuck off.”

But The Surfer has no intention of fucking off. He might have messed up his marriage, his relationship with his son might be rocky, but he’s been successful in his career and he’s here to buy back his grandfather’s old house and start to put things right. The problem is, the locals are a close-knit, powerful bunch, and they’re determined to make him leave…

If this all sounds pretty straightforward, don’t be fooled. The Surfer is a head-scramble of a film: as twisty and impenetrable as an overgrown maze; a hallucinatory experience where nothing is as it seems. Is The Bum (Nicholas Cassim) real? Is he The Surfer? Is he both – a literal and metaphorical double, like Bertha Rochester or Frankenstein’s monster? There are also some gruesome, gnarly moments, and viewers with an aversion to rats should be prepared to look away.

As The Surfer becomes increasingly untethered, spiralling into an chimerical world of sleep deprivation, dehydration and sun exposure, his point of view becomes ever less reliable, and we’re as lost as he is, unsure what’s true and what is not. But in amongst the madness, he clings to one thing: securing the deal on the house. If he can just get through to his broker, everything will be okay…

Under Finnegan’s direction, The Surfer is a taut, disturbing psychological horror, the tension never letting up. Scally(Julian McMahon) makes a compelling villain, his Andrew-Tate-ish brand of toxic masculinity both revolting and convincingly irresistible, and I’m on the edge of my seat throughout, hoping for his comeuppance. But this is Cage’s film and he really owns it, dragging us with him into The Surfer’s personal hell.

In short, The Surfer is an excellent film. Just not a great advert for Oz.

4.1 stars

Susan Singfield

Longlegs

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

Dream Scenario

20/02/24

Amazon Prime

Over a long and varied career, Nicolas Cage has developed a reputation for embracing weird movie projects, and writer/director Kristoffer Borgli’s Dream Scenario certainly fits that description – even if Paul Matthews, a rumpled professor of Zoology at an obscure university, appears to be the most normal guy in the world. Released in 2023, the film barely got a look in at the multiplexes and, having missed it there, I’ve been eager for it to start streaming. It’s finally available to rent on Amazon Prime, and I have to say, it is worth the wait. This bizarre, complex and occasionally shocking film has more twists and turns than the proverbial python on itching powder.

It begins (hardly surprisingly, given the title) when Paul listens to an account of a dream that his daughter, Sophie (Lily Bird), has experienced the night before – a dream in which she is floating helplessly skyward while her father sweeps up leaves in the garden and pays absolutely no attention to her plight. Paul feels weirdly guilty about his inability to do anything to help her, but older daughter Hannah (Jessica Clement) and Paul’s wife, Janet (Juliet Nicholson), assure him he’s just being paranoid.

But then other people start having dreams about Paul and in all of them, he’s just standing there, watching. As these dream scenarios become more common, a bewildered Paul finds himself featuring in the dreams of most of the students in his classes, a situation that seems to make them more receptive to his usually rather dry lectures. It’s not long before he’s a social media sensation. He can’t help but enjoy this new-found celebrity, telling himself that his stalled academic career might receive an invigorating bump from this strange phenomenon. He even engages the services of a team of marketing people, led by the vacuous Trent (Michael Cera), who keeps trying to persuade him to forge a partnership with Sprite.

But then the dreams that feature him take a much darker turn and Paul finds, to his dismay, that his students – and most of his friends and colleagues – are no longer quite so keen on him…

Dream Scenario is a fascinating film, one that works on many levels. It’s tempting to see it as an allegory about the nature of fame in the 21st century, the ways in which the most innocuous events can go viral and affect people’s lives – and also, how easily circumstances can change, resulting in those same people being cruelly cancelled by their former admirers. I like the way in which I find myself increasingly unsure, as the narrative unfolds, as to what’s a dream and what’s reality, the lines between the two realms blurring. Always a gifted performer, Cage is particularly compelling here, capturing Paul’s bumbling persona, as well as his rising doubts and paranoia as he sees his hopes for a more fulfilling career dashed and compromised at every turn.

There’s an interesting coda that takes the whole idea in a slightly different direction, while at the same time remaining true to its central premise. I’m left with the distinct conviction that, had I managed to catch this on first release, it would have numbered among my favourite films of 2023. But, better late than never, I guess.

4.5 stars

Philip Caveney