Longlegs (2024) Movie Review
Longlegs (2024) Movie Review
It’s an idea that has been explored in countless movies: evil lies beneath the surface of our everyday lives. We may not always see it or encounter it, but subconsciously we’re all aware of the fact that the world we live in is indeed inhabited by the darker side of mankind’s truths. This is a great starting point for a horror film, to exploit our knowledge of, and oftentimes, ignorance of the terrible things that happen in our communities that are covered up and brushed away. To bring us face to face with this reality can certainly be shocking and provocative. It’s why films such as Halloween and Get Out are so effective; it’s frightening to think about evil within our peaceful lives, neighborhoods, and larger environments, because we know it exists despite our best efforts to maintain peace and happiness. Unfortunately there is only so far a film can go with this basic groundwork without having to bring in a deeper, more specific layer, especially with the purpose of being something unique and original. Enter Longlegs, a movie that was being billed as the “scariest film of the decade” during its promotion, as well as being compared to classic police-procedural thrillers such as The Silence of the Lambs and Se7en. These are not insignificant claims, and despite my inevitable excitement, I was worried that the movie would simply not be able to deliver on its bold promises. I was overjoyed to discover that Longlegs is not only a scary movie, but one that I found decently profound in its presentation of themes regarding its message that evil is real.
Longlegs follows semi-clairvoyant FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) as she is assigned to the case of the titular man (played by Nicolas Cage) who has been linked to a series of satanic murder-suicides within families. As she starts to investigate the case and put pieces together about what ties these horrific events together, her own past catches up with her and before she knows it, nothing about her life is as it seems. To explain plot events much further would give away spoilers that should truly be revealed during the viewing experience, so I’ll leave it at that. Longlegs starts out as a slow-burn cop thriller in the vein of the films it has been compared to, and ends as an explosive, balls-to-the-wall frenzy of despair. Some viewers found the first half to be promising and the second half, the ending in particular, to be a letdown, but I personally found the opposite to be true. After an intriguing first scene and a cool opening title sequence, I became slightly restless with the relatively quiet tone of the film and its slightly hard-to-follow police procedure dialogue. I could understand, however, that dread was being built up, and fortunately it all paid off so nicely. Around the halfway mark, reveals about the characters and their circumstances begin to uncover one by one, and the tone changes into something much more riveting and, yes, scary. This probably isn’t the scariest movie of the decade or whatever but I would be lying if some of the scare moments didn’t get to me. You know that feeling you get after a good jump scare where your body is in shock for a few seconds? At one point I realized I was having that sensation throughout an entire scene.
What’s really great about Longlegs is how it, for lack of a better phrase, goes so incredibly hard. It’s not afraid whatsoever of making decisions that will provoke you, and not in a cheap way. A lot of tricks are pulled out of its sleeves, and the majority of them stick their landings in a satisfying way. Don’t get me wrong, this movie is dark and discomforting, but I would go as far as to call it a fun watch. I left the theater in a good mood because Longlegs rocks. I watched it in a packed house full of restless young people, and this movie shut everybody up. Director Osgood Perkins did not come to play games and you can tell he really put his heart into making this a truly awesome horror movie. I hope that this joins the canon of films that have gone down as classics for kids’ sleepovers when they stay up late and watch a “risky” movie to scare themselves because it absolutely deserves to. Everyone is saying it, but yeah, Nic Cage absolutely kills it. His performance is equal parts creepy and funny, and he’s clearly having so much fun hamming it up as this deranged madman that you feel comfortable laughing at his delivery of the material. This unexpected comedic aspect adds well to the layered tone of the entire affair in a way that is scarcely pulled off. That being said, my favorite performance is that of Maika Monroe, who is so perfect for this genre. She brings such a personal air and depth to her character, and this movie really wouldn’t be what it is without her.
I also want to quickly talk about the use of the T. Rex song “Bang a Gong (Get It On)” in this film. Longlegs opens with a quote on the screen pulled directly from the lyrics of the song: “Well, you're slim and you're weak / You've got the teeth of the hydra upon you / You're dirty, sweet and you're my girl.” It’s seemingly such a random choice to use this as the first thing the audience sees, but I think it very much ties into what I took away as the theme of the film as well and its take on the idea that evil is all around us. Longlegs doesn’t simply point out that murder and satanism can often lurk underneath the surface, but asks the audience to remember times early in their lives when they would have encountered such things but pushed the memories away. Children sometimes catch a glimpse into a much darker world than they are ready to comprehend, and oftentimes these glimpses are thrown away into the deep recesses of the subconscious. We grow up and forget about experiences we had, but later in life, perhaps, we realize that something was not right about a situation we were in. This movie asks you to remember and reflect on a time a stranger came up to you and said something weird, or a time you saw something off in the distance but weren’t quite sure what it was, for example. It’s hard to fully articulate, and it’s almost hyper-specific, but the film gets into your mind in this regard. It made me rethink some of my memories just as the main character did. As children maybe we had the “teeth of the hydra” upon us without even knowing it. And to think about that is scary, to think that we grew up in a world where evil did exist, and we were closer to it than we ever knew. All we can do is our best when it comes to protecting children.
This is why I love horror so deeply, nothing gets a reaction out of you quite like a good horror movie. It’s so powerful that a film can bring its audience back to memories supposed to be forgotten, to the vibrations of the world around us that maybe we aren’t supposed to even think about. I’m not saying Longlegs is an absolutely perfect film (also using “hail satan” as a widely distributed tagline was probably too bold of a choice), but I really love what it has to offer. It certainly belongs among the films from the past five years or so that will go down as classics of the genre, and it delivers such a specific feeling that is so hard to shake and deeply uncomfortable, but the film is so electrifying that you can’t help but respect the roller coaster ride it takes you on.
