Long Legs (2024) - Movie Review
What if I told you that this film made me say words I never imagined saying in my worst nightmare.. Nic Cage ruined the movie.
Let’s discuss.
Longlegs is a 2024 supernatural serial killer / creature feature horror film brought to us by writer / director Osgood Perkins. You would know him from his festival darling films like 2020’s Gretel and Hansel and 2015’s The Black Coat’s Daughter—Or not, as his films are normally not huge draws at the box office. However his films are shot incredibly well with fantastic use of natural light. His downfall has always been the storytelling.
So, when I heard that his new serial killer movie was a massive hit at the anemic box office, I was hopeful, but hopes were made to be dashed.
The film focuses on Agent Lee Parker, a fresh on the streets FBI special agent whose psychic abilities lead her to be assigned to a long running serial killer case. The killer somehow annihilates entire families without leaving a mark, it’s as if he gets the family’s to kill themselves. When Lee starts to see similarities between these crimes and the trauma experienced in her childhood, she enters a mind bending web of violence and brutality. Will she be able to solve the riddle before the killer finishes his ritual, or will she fall into the spider’s web?
I know this is going to be an unpopular opinion, but Longlegs is the most overhyped movie since It Follows and it despite the overwhelming positive reviews comparing it to 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs, it doesn’t come close to sniffing at the greatest of that genre defining film. It’s another beautifully shot movie with an intriguing premise, but it falls flat in the second act.
The script is somehow lacking in dialogue, but overflowing in exposition. Other than the amazing Blair Underwood, all the of the actors are just there to be robotic exposition machines, and/or meat for the beast. No one in this movie is substantial, no one’s life has meaning. Main characters got killed and the people I saw the film with just shrugged.
This film breaks my love affair with Maika Monroe streak over the last few months. She’s terrible in this movie. I don’t think it’s her fault—the script gives her nothing. She’s supposed to be autistic, I think? That’s the only way I could figure out why she is so blasé about everything. She’s supposed to be traumatized, but not all traumatized people become silent automatons who don’t show emotion even when friends are being stabbed to death. I was the victim of an attempting kidnapping when I was a child, did it cause me to clam up? No, I immediately signed up for Karate and MMA training. This portrayal makes 0 sense, as without any social skills—she wouldn’t have graduated from the Quantico. I know multiple FBI special agents, and social skills are one of the requirements.
This is a movie that asks a ton of questions, and thinks in doing so that it is world building. However, if you don’t give any definite details—than ambiguity is just a practice in lazy writing. Case in point—The film establishes that the lead character, played by Maika Monroe, is psychic. In the first ten minutes of the film they not only show that she is a powerful psychic who is able to immediately locate a suspect in a neighborhood in under a second. That’s impressive and at the 20 minute mark, her superior at the FBI says that she’s a psychic and that’s why he assigned her to the Longlegs task force.
“Mr. Zach, how many times does this come up in the movie again?”
“Never.”
That’s right, nothing comes of it. Her psychic power quickly turns to an achilles heel. Her psychic powers transform into the old horror stereotype of blacking out anytime there’s spooky music—which is also never explained. Apparently, these metal balls emit magical-satanic-psychic-energy that drive people crazy and they are installed in this intricate life-sized dolls of the targeted family’s youngest daughters. Somehow the useless, obvious, and completely unbelievable villain hand made these giant dolls and forced this magical orbs in the basement he lives in.
That brings me to The Ragemeister, Nicholas Cage is terrible in this film, and the script and director did nothing to help him. His initial appearance is extremely well down, as the upper half of his face is obscured, making the exchange uncomfortable to say the least—but then, before the first act is concluded—We get to ride shotgun with the killer as they go to sexually harass a local shopkeep’s daughter and have a Patented Nic Cage freakout on the way home. Here’s the problem—Nic Cage doesn’t stick to an accent here. He slips in and out of his normal Nic Cage voice randomly, which completely breaks the tension. Oh, and the facial applications used to make him look like whatever Long Legs is supposed to be—are so poorly done. You can see seams, and the finishing details are rough—and since they chose to show his face for most of the movie, by the final confrontation—he’s kind of lame.
The twist of the mother being the accomplice was so predictable, even my 75 year old father called it out in the first act of the film. It didn’t help that Alicia Witt’s performance was somehow both hammy and wooden. The first time you see her, it’s extremely obvious that she’s bad. There’s no warmth, no chemistry between her and her supposed daughter. Even estranged or squabbling family have a sort of chemistry that never goes away. A way of speaking to each other that’s natural, not horrible written goth poetry.
The first act was really good, but halfway through the second act it comes apart. I feel like this movie was chopped up to hell, because there are so many plot lines left hanging and zero explanations given. I mean, we’re told Long Legs is satanic, but there’s maybe one pentagram shown, and then they just say hail satan a bunch. There’s no reference to any actual satanic practice, no information on how he discovered the magical ball formula, or where he learned to carve perfect human replicas in the French Marionette style.
Near the end, Lee figures out that shooting the doll and breaking the orb breaks the spell—and yet, she has about 10 minutes to shoot the doll given to her bosses daughter—knowing that her boss and his wife will kill each other immediately, but she just stands there quivering. She literally does nothing this entire film but provided useless exposition that just overcomplicates things.
If they had just left it at a simple, creepy serial killer—we only ever see the bottom half of his face—who uses hypnosis through a Tiny Tim song to control children and orders them to kill their families—it would have been so much better. Instead we got this mystery box bullshit that takes itself way too serious.
In The Silence of the Lambs, Clarice Starling is a smart, motivated woman. She’s develops cunning and courage as the film progresses. She proves to her superior that she deserved her spot with the Bureau.
It’s called a heroes journey. It allows the audience to build a connection with the character. Yes, she took losses, but she learned from each one and by the end of the movie runs the gauntlet of her mistakes to claim victory.
In Long Legs, the main character is just a damsel in distress who only takes L’s.
I was so disappointed by this film.
What a waste.
