Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
“Longlegs” begins with a shot reminiscent of 1970s home videos, featuring a creepy, snake-like man with flaky skin that looks ready to shed as he ominously approaches a little girl. Nicolas Cage is serial killer “Longlegs,” a hybrid of “if Nagini from Harry Potter had a child with Count Dracula, and the kid grew up to be a Satanist murderer.” Cage has already portrayed the latter (Dracula) with finesse in the horror-comedy Renfield.
I couldn’t watch this 2024 slow-burn horror movie during its opening week because it wasn’t even playing in any of the movie halls in the city I live in. So, I had to wait for it to come to an online platform. Now that it’s on Prime Video, Friday night at 11 p.m. was a date with Longlegs, which follows FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) as she tries to track down a nefarious serial killer who slaughters innocent families. The only clue the FBI has is cryptic, coded notes signed “Longlegs.”
What confounds the FBI about the Longlegs murders is the fact that there seem to be no signs of forced entry at the crime scenes, which leads Lee Harker to suspect an occult or supernatural connection to the deaths. Maika Monroe’s Lee Harker is a highly intuitive, perhaps even partially psychic protagonist, with an impressively sharp sixth sense. This suspense—whether the movie is a typical serial killer story or a supernatural one—is maintained tightly over the runtime.
But even though Longlegs is suspenseful, unsettling, and solidly eerie, it’s also slow—so slow that it could compete with a group of sloths in a race and lose. I had a hard time keeping sleep at bay and was tempted to hit the fast-forward button a few times, but it’s also the kind of film where you cannot afford to skip any scenes, as something crucial or catastrophic could happen at any second! In fact, it’s the deliberately haunting sluggish pace that makes the sudden bursts of violence truly daunting and horrifying—or even exciting—in the film. Yet, Longlegs somehow plays it safe when it comes to blood, murder, and gore. It’s a little like The First Omen, which was also slow and atmospheric, but I found it more engaging due to its stunning gothic imagery and a protagonist who establishes relatable human connections around her.
Agent Lee Harker on the other hand is like a ghost in her own right, a ‘hard to place’ kind of character, with whom it’s difficult to connect as a viewer. She’s even painfully awkward with her mom, Ruth Harker, a religious nut who resembles a hippie groupie. The creators silently differentiate between the mother and daughter through the differences in their living spaces. While Lee lives in a stylish wooden house, which exudes minimalism, Ruth’s place is grossly overflowing with clutter, a nightmarish horror for neatness enthusiasts. So, once you see the mom, you sort of understand why the daughter is a special kind of weirdo. The sorts who stares blankly at kids when asked a question, like they are hiding a knife behind their back.
Nicolas Cage as the grotesque serial killer “Longlegs” will crawl under your skin, despite his limited screen time. The makeup team has transformed him into an otherworldly entity who looks more demon than man. Cage’s gnarly, heavy-set voice excellently complements his creepy scenes and violent outbursts, making him even creepier than the clown from Stephen King’s IT. Kiernan Shipka (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina/Totally Killer) has a small, eerie cameo as one of the rare victims who survived a massacre perpetrated by Longlegs, though her testimony provides no real breakthroughs for the FBI in the case.
Some parts of Longlegs reminded me of the horror movie The Black Phone, which is about a serial killer targeting children. However, The Black Phone maintains sustained energy throughout most of its runtime, offering both hope and despair in the story as its young hero actively fights to escape a locked basement. In Longlegs, there’s only dread, stretched over a few yawns, until the tense climax finally reveals the strange modus operandi of the creepy titular antagonist (you know, how he’s been murdering people without leaving any traces). The twist is wicked, not wholly unexpected, amply foreshadowed, and somehow feels rewarding after you’ve managed to stay awake through the first half! I don’t mean this sarcastically—I really did enjoy the ending, as it finally resolves the conundrum over what kind of horror movie Longlegs truly is. Let me just say—traditional horror fans are going to be delighted.
Rating: 3 stars on 5. Watch the film on Prime Video.
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