Longlegs (Osgood Perkins, 2024)

[brundlefly]

Teasers (1, 2, 3) for Oz Perkins' Longlegs.

[Finch]

Longlegs teaser

Osgood Perkins directing Maika Monroe and Nic Cage

[Mr Sausage]

Holy shit. If the movie's as unsettling as the trailer, this'll be a real treat.

[brundlefly]

Teasers (1, 2, 3) for Oz Perkins' Longlegs.

Longlegs teaser

Osgood Perkins directing Maika Monroe and Nic Cage

5, 6, The End.

[brundlefly]

Teasers (1, 2, 3) for Oz Perkins' Longlegs.

Longlegs teaser

Osgood Perkins directing Maika Monroe and Nic Cage

5, 6

And trailer.

[Mr Sausage]

Longlegs (Osgood Perkins)

This is very much in the spirit of The Blackcoat's Daughter. If you remember how cold and unhappy that movie felt, you're getting much the same here. There's something about Longlegs that felt so unpleasant and horrible. Much of that is down to Perkins' masterful technical control. Everything in the formal design is meant to discomfort you, from the empty compositions that isolate people or that highlight ominous backgrounds, to the fish eye lenses (it's like a lowkey Poor Things in that regard), to the jarring sound design that sets quiet alongside crashing music or sound effects, to the mix of performance styles. Of the three main actors, Nicholas Cage is over the top, Blair Underwood is aggressively normal, while Maika Monroe is so withdrawn and socially uncomfortable that I wondered if she was being coded as autistic. Of the secondary characters, Alicia Witt is layered and unreadable, while Kiernan Shipka has one of the best scenes, a deeply unsettling confrontation with quiet fanaticism. We're in an era of indie horror where even mid-level films show a mastery of tone and style that used to be much rarer, and yet Longlegs immediately distinguishes itself by its sheer formal control. I'd say the movie overgoes even Perkins' debut and approaches Kiyoshi Kurosawa in its ability to craft a deeply cold sense of fear, dread, and alienation.

But not just that: Perkins creates this layered, complex tone that combines the loneliness and dread of The Blackcoat's Daughter, the folktale atmosphere of Gretel and Hansel, with this feeling of the ridiculous, the kind of ridiculousness that many self-serious horror films accidentally fall into but which Perkins applies deliberately. Rather than undermining the seriousness of the movie, that sense of teetering on the edge of the ridiculous adds a layer of grotesquerie that's unpleasant to experience. It's hard to describe, but it put me on edge rather than pull me out. Like a silly joke made at the precise wrong time in order to make everyone uncomfortable, the exaggerated elements feel horrible in their contrast with the seriousness of everything else.

The trouble is that, like I Am the Pretty Thing that Lives in the House, the material might be a bit thin. Which is odd to say considering how many different things the film mixes together: psychic phenomena and ESP, satanism and demonic possession, the Seven-style psychological thriller. The story is coherent and well told, but the elliptical style risks underdeveloping the material, characters especially. And while I like that Perkins has responded to the trend Ari Aster set off of turning indie horror films into allegories for mental illness with a movie that is firmly literal in its horrors, the movie's literalism means the film may not be much more than what it's outwardly about, with only a straightforward thematic layer. And while I was satisfied by the story, the trouble with having such a powerful ability to suggest mystery and dread through style alone is that, if your story isn't quite so ambitious, it can feel like it's not doing enough lifting.

This is a very effective horror film. Worth seeing on the big screen.

[therewillbeblus]

Terrific post, nothing to add really, summed up my thoughts exactly

Rather than undermining the seriousness of the movie, that sense of teetering on the edge of the ridiculous adds a layer of grotesquerie that's unpleasant to experience. It's hard to describe, but it put me on edge rather than pull me out. Like a silly joke made at the precise wrong time in order to make everyone uncomfortable, the exaggerated elements feel horrible in their contrast with the seriousness of everything else.

This was true up until

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the final shot, which felt cartoonish with the literal kiss-off ending. The film would've had a much more effective immediate impression if it had ended on the fade into Maika Monroe's face, especially since all the extra scene does is make the "You're Fucked" punchline clearer, diluting its tone. Oh well, the film has plenty of a ferocious lasting impression to go around..

[Finch]

Oppressive (very!) is how I'd describe the film if you asked me to summarise it in one word. The sound and set designs, the lighting that makes everything look drained and sickly, Maika Monroe pale, very subdued and anxious (a far cry from her role in The Guest!), the cinematography that makes even regular family houses look terrifying. I was surprised we get to see Cage as early as we do; the marketing made me think we'd see him for the first time in the same moment Monroe does.

The Silence of the Lambs namedrops in some reviews feel off the mark for me; I didn't think of the Demme film at all, more of Se7en with the dark brown color palette and the grisly crime photos, but I felt that Longlegs had its own identity. For me, the more grotesque elements (Longlegs's look, the developments in the second half) didn't jar with the severe tone of the film; it just added to the overwhelming sense of everything in the world gone wrong.

I wouldn't call the film scary in the moment

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(apart from the flashback bit where Harker's mother confronts Longlegs and he breaks out into a song; THAT legitimately terrified me)

but it does have one or two shocking parts and it feels exactly like the kind of thing that lodges itself in my brain for days after even as I would question some narrative choices in the last 10 minutes: do we need to have everything spelled out? why isn't Harker acting sooner in the final confrontation knowing what some other characters are going to do? Agree with twbb that the very last shot was not necessary. If the intent was to say that in the end we're all fucked, then holding on the preceding shot achieved this in a more haunting fashion.

Monroe and Cage are fine but the real MVP of the movie for me was Alicia Witt. She runs away with this thing. Kiernan Shipka has a very memorable cameo about halfway through and I didn't even recognise her for the first minute or so.

I like the film a lot. I worry a little bit about how it's going to play on repeat viewings, whether the flaws are going to bother me more now that I no longer have the benefit of experiencing the film cold.

And Lionsgate missed a trick by not going for one of the film's many indelible images and the bold, red lettering used in the marketing for the home video release. What they ended up using looks striking in and of itself, I suppose, but it leans too hard into the Satanic elements.

[mfunk9786]

Wanted to talk about how much I hated the plot of this film and didn't have anywhere else to do it. To be fair - I think the performances and mood contribute to a pretty mixed bag, not a bad film, but the screenplay is abysmal.

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Much of the dialogue from the head honcho of the government investigation into these crimes seems to be about this same date coincidence - all of these murders are happening on girls' birthdays that occur on the 14th of a given month, right? Then why the fuck is he in his house acting as though nothing could possibly go wrong when his own daughter's birthday is nigh - on the 14th? It makes so little sense that it almost overshadows the metal Satan Balls that we get no real context around. You're writing a movie about numerical coincidences and Biblical tie-ins around them and neglect to consider that the final scene of that movie is centered around the guy who filled us in on most of this completely ignoring the clear and present danger he spent time warning against? No time for a rewrite?

I could go on and on (and probably have to LQ), but the movie is so stuffed with these sorts of halfhearted shrugs toward telling a three-dimensional story and hasty abandonments of same. I haven't really seen a film in recent years that is just doing whatever it wants to do to bridge the gap toward the next set piece or unusual artistic flourish. One of the biggest head-scratchers in this category comes very early on - why would you quote the lyrics to T. Rex's "Bang a Gong" off the top of a film if it has nothing to do with the plot aside from being the needle drop at the end credits? Why would you do half of this shit?

[therewillbeblus]

One of the biggest head-scratchers in this category comes very early on - why would you quote the lyrics to T. Rex's "Bang a Gong" off the top of a film if it has nothing to do with the plot aside from being the needle drop at the end credits?

The lyrics seem to pretty clearly refer to the plot

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The victims are girls being seen as coveted ("pretty") and "weak," and the goal is to make them "mine" - as prizes for the devil. It's not subtle at all, but it's as if written by Longlegs

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all of these murders are happening on girls' birthdays that occur on the 14th of a given month, right??

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At the start of the film, the chief says only one murder occurred on that day, but what they all have in common is that the daughters have birthdays on the 14th of a given month. He clearly looks uncomfortable in that scene, which I felt indicates that he is thinking about his own daughter meeting criteria. But since there isn't a pattern on the birthdays, it makes sense that he wouldn't be thinking of that, especially after assuming they've caught 'the killer'.

I do think the script is a bit over (and under)cooked, just addressing these two things

[Mr Sausage]

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Were the other murders all white families as well?

[therewillbeblus]

I believe so

[therewillbeblus]

I liked this a lot the first time, but felt compelled to pause my second viewing at the halfway mark to rewatch The Good Fairy instead. It's effectively creepy and impressively stylish, but that sensation is disproportionately overwhelming next to little value in the rest of its content - script, story, character, etc. It's a lot less fun than I remembered too, like if The Blackcoat's Daughter was stripped of its intrigue and thematic resonance. Kiernan Shipka's scene is still the highlight.

[Finch]

The writing not being as strong as all other aspects of his films seems to be the glaring flaw in everything Perkins has done, except the Blackcoat's Daughter (especially, I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House and Gretel and Hansel would have been brilliant as 10-20 minute shorts). Maybe next year's Monkey, based on Stephen King's story, and the film he's apparently already got in the can too, will be better in that regard. But so far, every film of his has left me feeling that I want to like it much more than I do because he is wonderful at setting a mood and the images and framing are classier than most other genre filmmakers. James Wan producing The Monkey makes me a little nervous, frankly.

[brundlefly]

I liked this a lot the first time, but felt compelled to pause my second viewing at the halfway mark to rewatch The Good Fairy instead. It's effectively creepy and impressively stylish, but that sensation is disproportionately overwhelming next to little value in the rest of its content - script, story, character, etc. It's a lot less fun than I remembered too, like if The Blackcoat's Daughter was stripped of its intrigue and thematic resonance. Kiernan Shipka's scene is still the highlight.

This is about where I fell on it. It was a fun goof, and I liked the serial killer movie hashtags (the Doctor Chilton scene was a hoot) and Easter egg album cover drops (Rio and Transformer are there with The Slider) but because of those it never got to be more than a movie-movie.

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Given it's one completely constructed for its lead character, the dread and guilt of fate never land with the emotional resonance Blackcoat's Daughter did.

I either blinked or blanked on Shipka's name in the opening credits, because she was both a surprise and a treat. Still angry that Sabrina series wasn't better.

[therewillbeblus]

I also completely agreed with Mr Sausage's impression the first time around: That its "ridiculous" aspects helped contribute to the overall unnerving tone, rather than worked to sober us from it. Which is still true to some degree, but this watch the film's extremely self-serious notes felt more at-odds with the silly elements of its titular character.

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There was definitely a way to end this movie to effectively drive home the "we're all fucked" message and amplify the unsettling revelations of the Devil's irreparable hold on mankind. Instead we get another shot of Cage being goofy and giving us a send-off kiss, which deflates the power of the penultimate shot. Not that that ending was 'enough' either, but it was as close to The Blackcoat Daughter's despairing finale than Perkins has achieved since. The additional footage is a puzzling choice, and -imagine accidentally- shifts the tone (and, arguably, the impact of the film) into a goof.

[Big Ben]

Perkins did a really wonderful interview with Mike Muncer on the Evolution of Horror podcast about Longlegs and the thing that I couldn't really get over is how aware Perkins is that he's taking the piss. He is blatantly aware how goofy this film is and he stresses that it was a very conscious decision that he made going into development. One of the main inspirations he cites is Eraserhead, a film I would argue makes significantly less sense than this one. Having heard Perkins be open about all this really helped me put a lot of things in the film into better context, at least as much as humanly possible for a film of this nature. No one questions why a woman lives in a radiator in Eraserhead so I can be forgiving if not everything in Longlegs makes apparent logical sense. More importantly though I think not understanding certain things makes the film more disturbing particularly the notion of broader malicious influence outside of the apparent and immediate control of the main characters.

[therewillbeblus]

I absolutely agree with that. The elisions are haunting. I just wasn't having fun with it on a second viewing, whereas the first felt like a blast as I was forgiving elements others have taken issue with. Seeing it in a theatre certainly helped.