Longlegs

Directed by Oz Perkins (2024) ***1/2

Actor/director Oz Perkins, the son of actor/director Anthony Perkins, has made a name for himself directing indie horror films (The Blackcoat’s Daughter, 2015; I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, 2016), as befits the progeny of someone who both acted in and directed films in the Psycho franchise. Oz’s latest, Longlegs is, somewhat improbably, a hit. It’s had the largest opening for an original horror movie in 2024 and the largest ever for its production company, Neon.

A viral online marketing campaign helped but can’t help word of mouth after the film debuts. Theatergoers are talking, though. Longlegs, starring Nicolas Cage as a mysterious freak, is dreadfully creepy, almost an endurance test in scary atmosphere. Even with plot holes and logical absurdities, it casts a powerful, claustrophobic spell. Adding to the atmosphere: the score by Elvis Perkins (Zilgi), Oz’s brother.

Taking place in the ’90s and using Jonathan Demme’s 1991 The Silence of the Lambs as a jumping off point, Longlegs begins earlier, with what looks like Super 8, Kodachrome film. (The opening credits feature the date of production in small, ’70s-style Roman numerals at the bottom of the screen; Ryan Johnson’s recent Poker Face, another retro concoction, does the same). A small girl in a grey-white snowy, winter landscape is visited by a stranger in her back yard, an enigmatic and off-putting creature whose face we cannot see. Years later we realize this was the person who calls himself Longlegs (Cage) and the daughter grows up to be reserved and stoic FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe, of It Follows). Harker is chosen to work on a series of serial killer cases dating back to the previous decade due to her powers of clairvoyance, tested and confirmed by government psychologists. She’s teamed with Agent Carter (Blair Underwood, of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), who, unlike most superior agents in films like this one, isn’t skeptical of Harker’s methods and abilities and is open to her suggestions. Harker and Carter’s ever-tightening investigation involve murders which, by facts alone, make no sense. Harker eventually realizes, though, that her link to the murderer may be stronger than having just met him by chance as a child.

For those steeped in the kind of film history Oz and Cage are students of, Longlegs is a treasure trove. The physical conception of the title character (and his implied back story) recalls Lon Chaney Sr.’s The Phantom of the Opera. The character is physically a cross between Max Schreck’s 1922 Nosferatu (who Cage had recently discussed in his The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent) and Bette Davis’ Jane Hudson in 1962’s What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (The mythology of the film was also inspired by Sir James George Frazer’s 1890 study, The Golden Bough.)

Not that it has any bearing on the quality of the film, but Longlegs features many David Lynchian easter eggs if one knows where to look (not surprising as Twin Peaks was a fine mixture of mythology, horror and comedy). One of the murdered family’s names is Horne, also the name of the family invaded by demon Bob on Twin Peaks. Mention is made of an Agent Fisk; Jack Fisk was Lynch’s production designer on several films and had a role in his Eraserhead (1977). Lee Harker’s mother is played by Alicia Witt, whose first role was in Lynch’s Dune (1984); she also appeared in all three seasons of Twin Peaks.

Despite the call-backs to film history, despite the easter eggs and pop culture references, Longlegs is original in its totality, in its mixture of humor and horror, in its directing, which leads the viewer to expect the unexpected at any time, in any background crevice, and in the film’s willingness to indulge in near-campiness and unexpected comedy without sacrificing any suspense. In this, Perkins was inspired by his father’s direction of Psycho III (1986), with its incorporation of humor. Nicolas Cage’s performance is in keeping with the film’s odd, almost fragile tone, staying true to the script as written, but still improvising with his voice pitch and diction, pacing, body language, mannerisms. Enjoy Longlegs or hate it, you’ll never forget Cage in this role, one of many great ones he’s given in recent years.

—Michael R. Neno, 2024 July 21