“Longlegs” (2024)
4/5 ****
“Longlegs” is a 2024 horror film directed by Osgood Perkins. The story follows FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) as she works to uncover a string of murder-suicides in 1990s Oregon that are all accredited to someone named Longlegs (Nicholas Cage). As the mystery unfolds, Lee learns the dark and twisted truth about Longlegs, as well as his connection to her. Critics have compared the film to the 1991 horror film “Silence of the Lambs.”
Without giving too much away, this film carries a lot of horror tropes, and yet they all work very well together. While all the new twists and turns might be janky for some viewers, I think that Perkins does a good job balancing the realism and the occult. The supernatural elements blend with the world very well, being mundane enough to be believable but abstract enough to be unique and terrifying. The way the film is shot adds to the horror and atmosphere. With long stretches of silence and the camera lingering in the background, the audience looks deep into the space to see if there is anything there. In many scenes, there is a deep sense of dread and fear for the characters.
Some of the scenes are edited very well. For the flashback scenes set in the 1970s, they are edited as if from a film from that period. The camera shots are more static, and the aspect ratio makes it feel like the audience is watching the scenes on an old film projector. There are also shots where the film projects images related to what the characters are talking about. One sequence has the audio of the murders over a slideshow of the crime scene photos. Both stylistic choices make the film more immersive and add a sense of reality to the events.
This is a fun horror film to immerse yourself in. Watching it again, I noticed a lot of things that I did not notice the first time. There are subtle details and foreshadowing that really tie the whole thing together and add another level of horror. I will note that this film is artistic. The way the story goes, the way it is shot and edited, differentiates it from mainstream horror films. Not everything is explained, and it does not need to be. A lot is put up to audience interpretation. I am still trying to figure out how to interpret the ending.