LONGLEGS

Creepy thriller Longlegs effectively draws you in with an abundance of atmosphere and a disturbing Nic Cage performance yet there is also something of the emperor’s new clothes about the film.

The line between homage and rip-off often is a very slim one and Longlegs straddles it continuously, but for large swaths of its taut runtime this dark serial killer flick in the vein of nineties classics The Silence of the Lambs and Seven gets away with it.

That’s because the story of a young female FBI agent on the hunt of the titular serial killer, who mysteriously compels family patriarchs to kill their wives and children immediately draws you in with a deft mix between tangible realism and a soupcon of something demonic lurking underneath.

Apart from the brooding, blood-splattered visual flair and a fittingly unnerving soundtrack, the compelling lead performance of Maika Monroe is perhaps Longlegs’ biggest asset. Sure, she mostly channels Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs, but there is more to it than mere mimicry: there is something unique, unhinged and dangerous about her.

In a whole different register – that often clashes with the realistic visual approach yet still doesn’t seem out of place – and buried under extremely odd makeup, Nicolas Cage also gets under your skin as the enigmatic villain, while the rest of the cast is expertly picked in roles very much suited to them.

Alas, all the visual and thespian razzle-dazzle crumbles in the movie’s final act, when writer-director Oz Perkins struggles to match thematic heft with the overt, derivative nods to better nineties thrillers and an expansion of the demonic element that frankly falls flat on its face. The confoundingly ambivalent final shots only add to the feeling of a film that bites off more than it can chew.

release: 2024

director: Oz Perkins

starring: Maika Monroe, Nicolas Cage, Alicia Witt, Blair Underwood