Osgood Perkins’ ‘Longlegs’ Is A Haunting Portrait Of Sacrifice And Depravity – Review

From the very beginning, Longlegs draws us in with its immersive atmosphere of unrelenting dread, keeping us fully engaged and captivated.

Writer/director Osgood Perkins utilizes a structure that moves through decades and the various murders, unravelling a true crime case piece by piece, with each discovery elevating the tension. It’s skin crawling, evoking the feeling of claustrophobia. Longlegs’ presence is all-encompassing, yet he’s nowhere to be found. The story is like taking the true-crime elements of Silence of the Lambs or Se7en and mixing in a creepypasta you’d find at a slumber party with friends as you’re scouring the internet to scare each other. It’s the kind of tale that sticks with you, and even though you know it’s fake, you can’t help but think about how these fantastical horrors can mirror our world.

Maika Monroe as Lee Harker in *Longlegs*. (Courtesy of Neon)

Scream queen Maika Monroe taps into the role of an introverted, haunted young FBI agent, Lee Harker. Along with her detective skills, she has a strong intuition. We see this being utilized initially during her first run as a rookie. After she excels there, she gets pulled into the case of the mysterious serial killer Longlegs, who has been able to continue his crime spree over decades without an end in sight. With no traces of him in the scenes besides cryptic letters, we’re left to watch as Harker assists Agent Carter (Blair Underwood) and Agent Browning (Michelle Choi-Lee) in uncovering who this nefarious entity is before he can kill again.

Although I’m not religious, the search for hope is something I’ve always found captivating- finding faith in other’s words, lessons in moral tales, and belief in things beyond. Much to her mother’s disdain, Lee Harker hasn’t been saying her prayers. Actually, she admits that she’s never said them at all. They scared her. The juxtaposition between good and evil, the FBI and the person they’re hunting, combined with the relationship between Lee and her mother, highlight the twisted sacrifices that shroud this film. The sacrifices of being an FBI agent with a case that envelops you, taking time away from your life outside of work. Longlegs’ literal sacrificing of lives for his satanic agenda and the sacrifices and lengths you’d go to keep the ones you love safe from wicked horrors.

Agent Carter’s daughter asks Lee, “Is it scary to be a lady FBI agent?” Lee thinks about it for a second, visibly uncomfortable, as she is for most of the film. Despite her determination and bravery, she’s still a rookie, and her fear shows on her face. Monroe captures that dignified terror in a mesmerizing way. This case slowly takes more of her and furthers her isolation, and we watch each moment as the degradation continues. Alicia Witt, who kickstarted her career working with one of my favourite filmmakers, David Lynch, in Dune and Twin Peaks, provides a hauntingly quiet, poignant performance as her mother. Witt’s role is integral to unlocking more background on Lee’s upbringing, including the bits she doesn’t remember. Nicolas Cage fully leans into and expands on his signature unhinged performances with a sinister twist. He reaches places I’ve never seen from him, and this is now among my favourite performances of his, along with Pig, Adaptation, and Moonstruck. As Longlegs or the “man downstairs”, he embodies the portrait of evil in its most sadistic nature.

The film is immaculately shot; every frame holds the dread and builds the tension necessary to keep us on our toes. Although he’s only directed four films thus far, with his adaptation of Stephen King’s short story The Monkey coming next year, Perkins has shown that he knows how to craft a genuinely nightmarish tale. The sound design is skin-crawling, paired with the chilling imagery to seep every bit of fear into our minds. Between glimpses of the crimes, long takes of Longlegs, and everything in between, Longlegs is undoubtedly one of my favourite horror entries of the last decade. As audience members, we get a front-row seat to the mystery. We think we are making leaps by watching the agents dissect Longlegs’ codes, as we’re deciphering the same from the film as a whole, but we all couldn’t be more wrong. The man downstairs and Perkins are one step ahead, with each answer bringing on more terrifying questions. Longlegs ravages the psyche of everyone he touches.

The third act is a stunningly grotesque nightmare – a culmination of the enthralling, depraved atmosphere built throughout the runtime. It feels as though the film is spreading his evil. Longlegs will continue to haunt you long after you’ve left the theatre.