Longlegs Is A Victim Of Its Own Marketing, But Still The Best Of Its Kind
I can’t think of any other movie in recent memory that has had a marketing campaign as brilliant as Longlegs, but sometimes too much hype is a bad thing. As somebody who watches TV and movies professionally, it’s easy for me to become jaded by familiar tropes and narrative constructs that are common in horror movies (and movies in general), and in a way, I felt cheated because there was no way the movie could possibly live up to its own brilliant viral marketing. However, as I drove away from the Regal Hollywood theater just down the street from my apartment, it dawned on me that Longlegs had jammed its ugly hooks under my skin, and I realized that I’ll be thinking about this movie for at least a couple of weeks.
Advertising Vs Execution
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve seen the cryptic and unsettling promotional content ahead of Longlegs’ release for the past several months, and if you’re a horror fan you were all but foaming at the mouth in anticipation for its theatrical premiere.
Though Nicolas Cage received top billing alongside Maika Monroe, his character was shrouded in mystery, only adding to the film’s allure. Early reviews hinted that Longlegs would be a cross between Zodiac and Silence of the Lambs, making me fester further into a bottomless pit of impatience.
But like Tool’s long-awaited and highly-anticipated Fear Inoculum album, which took 13 years to finally materialize to underwhelming reception, I left the theater thinking “good, not great,” and started my car.
However, something about the film broke my brain, and with that, my routine. Normally, I flip through Spotify and find music to fit the mood for my commute, but instead I absentmindedly let the radio take over, and I drove home clenching my jaw, and the steering wheel, while Silverchair’s “Tomorrow” slowly pulsed through my car stereo.
You’ve Definitely Heard Versions Of This Story Before
Now, I don’t want to spoil Longlegs in any way, shape, or form, but I’ll tell you that its narrative structure isn’t all that unique when compared to the classics or its contemporaries. We’re introduced to Maika Monroe’s Agent Lee Harker, a young and talented FBI agent with a possible gift of clairvoyance.
When she cracks an unrelated case at the film’s outset, she’s immediately recruited by Agent Carter (Blair Underwood) to help assist in solving a long string of unsolved murder-suicides. Each series of murders, which took place over the course of the preceding decades, occurred under the same mysterious circumstances in which the killer would leave a coded letter to authorities, signed “Longlegs.”
Harker immediately starts obsessing over the case files, trying to find a pattern, which proves to be difficult because there are no signs of forced entry, or even the murderer’s presence, according to forensic reports, for that matter.
The Dread Eventually Emerges
Broken into three distinct chapters, starting with “His Letters,” Longlegs reveals that Harker has some sort of personal connection to the string of ritualistic murders; a concept that gestates just beneath the surface for the remainder of the film, causing an intense sense of unease.
Harker is seemingly stalked by an invisible presence, which only increases her paranoia as we get further into the story. As more of her personal life is revealed, it becomes apparent that she’s been more closely involved with the case than she had initially thought, and the kind of anxiety I experienced while watching the events unfold was one that didn’t hit me until after the credits started to roll.
Nicolas Cage’s Unnerving Presence
As for Nicolas Cage‘s portrayal of Longlegs, I’m not surprised by how menacing his performance truly is, but I was most certainly impressed by how he used his screen-time. Despite being the titular antagonist, you don’t see him much … but when you do, his presence is all-consuming in the worst kind of way.
What really sucked me in while watching Longlegs was the amount of times jump scares were set up but never executed; Osgood Perkins made a deliberate decision to always show the audience the empty spaces behind Harker’s shoulders when she gets lost in deep thought, but without any true gotcha moments.
Between the expected faces in windows that never materialize, and Harker’s increasing sense of existential dread, you’re forced to feel uneasy because there is no payoff until well into the third act, and by then you’re so wrought with anxiety that you don’t really care what happens next, so long as it comes to an end soon. Imagine pulling the elastic on a slingshot back to its breaking point, and never having the satisfaction of letting it rip until your moving target is long gone even though it deserved to be struck right between the eyes with a pebble.
It Won’t Hit You Until It’s Over
GFR SCORE
If you’re a casual horror fan, Longlegs is the one film in the genre that you need to see this year. But if you’ve seen it all before, you may experience a similar delayed reaction to myself in the sense that you simply don’t realize how much your expectations are being subverted until the movie arrives at its conclusion. Changes in aspect ratio and color are so subtle that you don’t realize they’re happening until you’re well into the next scene, and like Longlegs himself, you’re not quite sure if he’s an immediate threat, or simply lurking in the shadows and biding his time.
Initially, I went into watching Longlegs with impossible expectations, knowing that they’d never be satisfied. But as I drove home listening to a young Daniel Johns singing “You wait ’til tomorrow,” it finally hit me how this particular slow-burn will live under my skin until I fully unpack what I just watched.
