2024 is proving to be a 12 months of horror, each dangerous and good. The 12 months has featured a few of the most generic horror movies thus far in addition to some glorious new visions and scares. Oz Perkins‘ fourth characteristic, Longlegs, finally falls within the latter class, regardless of some familiarity within the floor it treads.
Whereas the movie is at its core a police procedural within the vein of The Silence of the Lambs, Perkins’ distinctive sense of ambiance, putting modifying selections, and heavy coat of Satanic scare make it a charming expertise regardless of its flaws. Opening on a startling sequence shot in academy ratio, the movie introduces Nicolas Cage simply off-center from body as Longlegs, setting a tone for the movie to return. Perkins instructions an unsettling disquiet all through, teasing viewers with broad photographs that play in your expectations of what lurks within the nook of frames in movies like this one. Even when nothing comes, Perkins retains stress ramped up with smash cuts that throw you off and go away your coronary heart pounding.
Maika Monroe stars as an FBI agent who’s discovered to be “mildly psychic” and is quickly enlisted on the chilly case of Longlegs, a killer who manages to off total households with out ever entering into their homes. The movie is one other in a current line of 90s-set movies, proving that the 2020s are the last decade of 90s nostalgia. Distinguished photographs of President Invoice Clinton’s portrait fill a number of frames, serving each as a interval reminder in addition to layering in a few of the thematic content material.
Monroe’s breakout in It Follows has led to her being dubbed one of many new Scream Queens. Whereas she isn’t any Jodie Foster, Monroe is an efficient viewers avatar, her intentionally quiet and muted efficiency serving to to move us into the movie and her confused perspective. The draw back of this alternative is that her character is kind of bland and forgettable, which is why she won’t stand the check of time like Clarice Starling. Monroe’s giving her finest, however that is undoubtedly one of many weaker facets of the movie.
There’s additionally a good statement that the movie’s thriller doesn’t fairly maintain the ambiance. The third-act revelations maybe inevitable don’t stay as much as the sense of dread and foreboding that had been conjured. As exposition is said, the movie loses a few of its aura, and the plot doesn’t actually run deeper than one may fairly guess from the primary act.
Regardless of these flaws, the movie greater than makes up for it in fashion. It has a few of the handiest scares in a horror movie this 12 months. And Nic Cage’s unhinged efficiency, whereas threatening to swallow the character of Longlegs within the Cage persona, does grant the character such a way of surreality that it’s successfully creepy.
Longlegs makes selections that maintain it again from being the masterpiece it could possibly be. Working glam rock into the soundtrack and some different scenes render sure moments virtually goofy. But it’s an unnerving movie all the identical, continually leaving you off-kilter. It takes a extremely expert editor and director to tug this off, and it’s demonstrative of what Oz Perkins has to supply. Longlegs just isn’t one to overlook.
