Longlegs
2024 Directed by Oz Perkins
Horror Marathon 2024 Day 25 Film 51
There's a haze around coming of age- when we reflect on the time of our youth sometimes we rely on others to recreate the memory. But each fragmented perspective doesn't tell the whole truth, and sometimes secrets are buried so deeply that when they're revealed they come as shattering. Longlegs is one of those stories- a creeping nightmare of things we try to forget that seem to repeat themselves over and over. The film opens by setting the scene of tracking down a cold case serial killer who seems to lay no other evidence of his being there but for elaborate cryptograms.
The FBI agent, played by Maika Monroe, seems to be able to find the connections as if by magic- Maika has her typical monotone voice, but with more awareness. She has a clear objective, and doesn't seem to be able to connect emotionally to the people around her- perhaps a protection indicative of how feeling she is for the cases themselves. It does have some lilting way of speech as a connection to Jodie Foster's Clarice, and even the investigation seems to start to retread some of where that film goes. There's something unraveling here as the puzzle starts to fall in place it feels like a whole season of True Detective Season 1's spiral of time; or getting into the over the top gritty of Se7en with its mythology- An evil that comes in waves.
Nicolas Cage has created a true monster of a character- a chittering maniac of eccentric physical screen presence that lurches forward and demands everything from the audience. Not unlike The Black Phone with Hawke, I see this transformative killer as a total evil that has sunken close by and plagues the land. It goes to the exploitation of fears of the pre-internet- of how innocence can be snatched from areas once perceived as safe. The dread is nauseating- felt through the beautiful cinematography that seeps in its blank spaces. The film plays with time and space, how scenes spurt violence in ways that are off the typical rhythm of horror.
This is executed through a long buildup of suspense- so that when the blood pours it's shocking enough because the audience hasn't been numbed already. I appreciated that the film navigates questioning the real form of the killer and the perspective of the investigation- like an old giallo feature the investigation takes some goofy leaps of logic. It erodes into a parody of the self seriousness of earlier scenes, almost making a farce of the conventions of genre and playing with them. The ending may be a bit too cute, but I can forgive a bit of campy guilty pleasure.