Even more enticing is the presence of lead actress Maika Monroe, who rose to prominence through It Follows, another well-loved horror film of recent years. Oh, and the director is the son of Norman Bates from Psycho. So no pressure then.
Longlegs has been subject to a lot of attention as a result of all these exciting factors, but this has also led to a divisive reception as some people fall head-over-heels with it and some people are left wanting more or, worse still, disappointed.
Personally, I think I’m an outlier even amongst all of this. I don’t think Longlegs is stellar by any means, but I wasn’t disappointed either. It’s a very effective and engrossing bit of horror that does genuinely succeed in getting under your skin - it just so happens to have a few issues.
It’s interesting that Maika Monroe is the lead star here, as this film does feel spiritually similar to It Follows. The horror isn’t particularly in-your-face, but it does a great job of instilling fear. In It Follows, the fear came from the idea of the silent pursuer, constantly on the hunt for our main characters, while here a lot of the suspense comes from the race-against-time element, the desperate search for clues in the hunt to catch the Longlegs killer.
Longlegs has been compared a lot to the classic film The Silence Of The Lambs, and I can definitely see why. It takes the form of a police procedural, with a scary-as-sin side character put in there to help move the story along. Cage’s character is different to Anthony Hopkins’s Hannibal Lecter though, since Lecter serves as an unreliable narrator to give Jodie Foster’s detective the necessary information, while Cage’s character is just one piece of this gigantic terrifying puzzle. Cage himself is fantastic here, and he shows us that when he picks the right project he can do something truly special. His character is terrifying here and certainly the highlight of the whole thing.
It’s also just a really gripping mystery for the most part, working out the patterns of Longlegs’ behaviour and seeing how Monroe’s character Lee becomes sucked into the investigation. Her descent into paranoia as the film goes on is not only acted out wonderfully by Monroe, but also essential in maintaining the film’s constantly creepy atmosphere.
Admittedly, some of the answers to what’s going on are a little silly. The times where the film blurs the lines between its simple serial killer plot and its more supernatural aspirations can leave a bit to be desired, and there are some unfortunate plot holes here. I can’t discuss them without spoiling so I won’t but, while I did leave suitably creeped out, I also left a bit confused regarding certain aspects of the plot.
Also, some of the supporting characters sadly aren’t as interesting as they could have been. There are many scenes with Lee’s mother, played by Alicia Witt, that take attention away from the main mystery and unnecessarily convolute the story. They’re not bad, but it felt like I’d skipped to a different film when these scenes would happen, and the way they tie into the central narrative is a little clunky.
With that said though, Longlegs succeeds where it's most important. A horror film needs to be scary, and it needs to leave an impression, and Longlegs does both of those things with creative direction, sublime tension and some fantastic performances.
It seems every year now there is a horror film that everyone goes mad over, and sometimes they’re not all they’re chalked up to be, but in the case of Longlegs I’d say the hype is real.