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★★★ Writer-director Osgood Perkins returns to the horror scene with Longlegs, a serial murder mystery that brings to mind films like The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Seven (1995), and Cure (1997) as it takes place in the 1990s and submerges a police procedural in a pool of dread. Perkins, whose previous work includes The Blackcoat’s Daughter (2017) and Gretel & Hansel (2020), adds occult and supernatural elements that give his film some unique moments but also make the material uneven.
Maika Monroe stars as Lee Harker, a young FBI agent assigned to the case of a Satanist serial killer played by Nicolas Cage. Agent Carter (Blair Underwood) has Lee look into a decadeslong series of family murder-suicides in Oregon that seem isolated events except for cryptic notes left behind signed “Longlegs.” Lee must also face her past and the wishes of her religiously devout mother, Ruth (Alicia Witt), as her investigation becomes more complicated.
Perkins (son of Psycho’s Anthony Perkins) immediately establishes a dark atmosphere for Longlegs with a creepy opening scene in a snowy setting. The scene also plays with aspect ratios to keep a character only partially in view, a trick Perkins returns to throughout the picture. It’s one of the more effective opening scenes in the horror genre of late.
The film then shifts to Lee, who shows early on that she possesses unusual skills that can help the FBI—not to spoil what those are. She also shows her inexperience in the field, though, looking as if she might jump out of her own skin at moments of uncertainty or brutality. To be fair, not many could hold their stomachs in the company of rotting bodies.
Monroe does well displaying Lee’s combined determination and naïveté. Even when Lee must try to remain stone-faced, Monroe does a lot of strong acting with her eyes. Some of the scenes would not work if she weren’t able to sell Lee’s realizations and fear with a look.
Cage is the one many viewers have been wondering about since he has been left out of much of the film’s minimalist marketing campaign. With the help of a prosthetic nose and pasty makeup, he disappears into the role of Longlegs. He isn’t in the film too much and really has only one “big scene,” but he is chillingly strange when he does appear. It’s another interesting performance by Cage, who has been on a roll the past few years, selecting offbeat but intriguing characters.
Perkins gets a lot of assistance from cinematographer Andres Arochi, who has somehow managed to shoot only shorts and videos before this. Arochi has a great eye and slowly moves the camera through the eerie settings Perkins establishes. Shots with open doorframes in the background are especially effective, leaving viewers to constantly check if something is going to appear in them.
Despite taking place in the 1990s, Longlegs doesn’t draw much attention to the era beyond phones from the period and framed photos of Bill Clinton. It also doesn’t try too hard to look as if it actually takes place in Oregon beyond some newspaper clippings and maps. The film was shot mostly in Vancouver, British Columbia, and most Oregonians seeing the picture can probably tell.
Longlegs is more unsettling than downright scary, and the screenplay becomes both muddled and predictable in the second half. Even so, Perkins delivers a number of hair-raising moments, and his two stars are game for the odd turns in plot. Longlegs isn’t as great as the classic ‘90s horror films it resembles, but it provides a gripping serial killer tale nonetheless.
SEE IT: Longlegs, rated R, screens at Hollywood Theatre, Lake Theater & Cafe, Living Rooms Theaters, Oak Grove Cinema 8, and local AMC, Cinemark and Regal locations.