Throughout the year, teasers and advertising for the film“Longlegs” intrigued horror fans across the film community. The Neon film studios’ horror flick was advertised as “One of the scariest and best films of the year,” and has been described as “The best serial killer horror film since the Silence of the Lambs.” Neon, known for successful films such as “Anatomy of a Fall,” and “Parasite,” has been a rising name in the indie horror genre.
The film “Longlegs,” released July 2024, stunned with its promotional performance by releasing codes and short clips for fans to decipher, which built up anticipation. Longlegs’ face wasn’t revealed in the trailer; even a Google search of his face yielded no results. As fans did their own sleuthing, anticipation grew among the film community. But did the film live up to the promotional stunts, early reviews and fanfare?
There’s no doubt that “Longlegs” has every aspect of an intriguing and horrifying storyline. The plot revolves around a new detective, Lee Harker (Maika Monroe), attempting to help the FBI solve a string of murders. The murders are connected to a person known only as Longlegs (Nicolas Cage), as he signs his alias at the end of his notes found at the crime scenes. Longlegs starts messing with Harker, leaving her unique clues, causing her to remember a strange man that appeared in her childhood.
Cage does an exceptional job with his limited screentime, stealing any scene he’s in and leaving the audience horrified and uncomfortable. I felt myself moving around in my seat when I was introduced to Longlegs. The theater audience seemed to respond in a similar way, whispering and exclaiming to one another as Cage continued his performance.
Despite Cage’s stellar performance, I found “Longlegs” lacking in depth towards the second half of the movie. The crime thriller revolving around the serial killer Longlegs had shifted to an entirely new narrative of supernatural dolls, God and the devil. The clues Harker discovered seemed superficial and came to her without a struggle, causing the audience to be served with evidence rather than deciphering and figuring out the story in their own time. This caused the plot to begin to fall apart, and go from serial killer to a man possessed by the devil. The film continues to explain Longlegs an occult killer, creating satanic doll’s used to possess young girls and their families into killing one another.
As Harker gets closer to the truth she interviews Longlegs. As soon as he explains what is happening, he kills himself, and we are left with an unfinished character study into the man that was Longlegs. It is later revealed, predictably, that Harker’s mother, Ruth Harker (Alicia Witt), a religious and estranged woman, was helping Longlegs to save young Lee’s life. In return for Lee living, Ruth had to bring Longlegs’ dolls to families in the community, continuing the family slayings in the name of the devil.
Was “Longlegs” an entertaining watch? In my opinion, it absolutely was, and it was worth the watch. It’s always exciting to see flocks of movie-goers returning to theaters, especially for a highly anticipated horror movie. Although I found the film somewhat disjointed, and perhaps a touch overhyped, I enjoyed the beginning of the film immensely and what “could’ve been” the plot for this story. The color palette and cinematography are visually stunning and chilling, and the character of Longlegs keeps the viewer on the edge of their seat through Cages’ whopping 10 minutes of screentime.
With a Rotten Tomatoes score of 85 percent, “Longlegs” still received a plethora of positive reviews. Compared to the fanfare built around the film however, I found myself leaving disappointed and oversold on an underdeveloped story.
Olivia Baier can be reached at [email protected]
