‘Longlegs’ Review
‘Longlegs’ Review
Nicolas Cage and the horror of loneliness.
THE MOST EFFECTIVE MOMENTS in Longlegs aren’t the bloodiest ones—the gunshots or the bludgeonings or the month-old corpses—but the ones where the camera lingers on a character, alone, in an empty space. Or a space that should be empty, anyway. A space that might not be empty. True terror is the fear that comes with the loss of thinking we’re safe because we’re alone.
There’s a creeping dread at the heart of Oz Perkins’s Longlegs that becomes most pronounced when FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) is by herself. When she’s in a library decoding messages from the killer known to authorities only as Longlegs (Nicolas Cage) and the lights are low and her back is to the open space. Or when she’s sitting at her desk in an empty cabin, a doorframe leading to a hallway conspicuously over her shoulder. Perkins loves framing Special Agent Harker in such a way; she’s often facing a window with an expanse behind her, lots of negative space into which we constantly—constantly—expect a figure to appear, as if by magic.
It’s the sort of thing Bryan Bertino did to incredible effect in The Strangers (2008), another movie that works by stripping people of the security of their solitude, of the idea that they should be comfortable in their own home. The idea that terror can strike you anywhere, even in your safest sanctum, where your kids lay their heads to sleep: now that’s a truly scary notion.
Harker and Agent Carter (Blair Underwood) are working on the Longlegs case. A series of families over a period of decades have died via murder-suicide: The dad kills the family, then himself. At each killing is a note written in a Zodiac-style cipher, signed “Longlegs.” There is no physical evidence, suggesting Longlegs himself was not there. So how are the killings happening? What is the involvement of this Longlegs? And what can stop them?
Cage’s work as the titular killer is about what you might expect, by turns quiet and creepy then loud and brash. He’s never not the center of attention when he’s on the screen. Monroe gets more screen time and makes the most of it; her Harker is a quiet role, one that involves a lot of staring and processing. It’s also often a quietly funny performance, as when Harker is meeting Carter’s family and his daughter, Ruby (Ava Kelders), asks if she wants to see her room—a question that is met with a look that can only be described as “how do I deal with this alien creature’s bizarre request?”—and then doubles down on that by inviting the FBI agent to her birthday party. Her clipped “I’ll be there” prompted a number of laughs in my auditorium.
I’ll be honest, I was a bit surprised by the amount of straightforwardly supernatural elements in Longlegs; I’d seen people describe it as akin to The Silence of the Lambs or Seven, and it’s not quite like those despite all three involving officials chasing an unknown serial killer. This is not a complaint, necessarily, just something to keep in mind if you go see it. And you should, with an audience if you can. It’s the sort of movie you want to watch free of external distractions, like a phone, and also with a group. Knowing you’re not alone.
Because being alone in this cold, unforgiving universe is the scariest thing there is.