The Nightmarish Enchantment of Longlegs 

LONGLEGS. Uncharacteristically, I experienced little-to-no creeping cynicism before, during or after my time with Longlegs. As I walked into the theater, one of the staff suggested that I should approach the movie without expectations, mostly because its marketing campaign threatens to overshadow the very thing it is intended to promote. Not too much to worry about on that score, as I strive to live under a rock as much as possible and had thereby experienced literally nothing that would lead me to any preconceptions. Aside from the notable presence of Nic Cage in the cast, of course, but that in and of itself is enough to stymie any attempts at premature judgment. 

While I may have taken that friendly advice lightly (perhaps dismissively), I would, in the course of experiencing the thing, come to understand that it is a work of elevated modern horror that, with some minor exceptions, does indeed confound simple or reductive description. And, in a heartening turn, it seems to be a modest box office hit, even amid the movie-nerds' wailing and gnashing of teeth about the impending end of the movie business.

Written and directed by Osgood "Oz" Perkins, whose (in)famous father Anthony did as much for his type of cinema as anybody (to borrow a phrase from Waylon Jennings), Longlegs stands proudly among the work of a small group of creatives of a certain age — I'm thinking of Grant Singer's Reptile (2023), all of Jordan Peele's movies to date and especially Zach Cregger's Barbarian (2022) — that can synthesize and reference both cinematic technique and genre storytelling in an academic but also entertaining way to produce movies that, in acknowledging their origins, can and do feel new and original. 

Longlegs, as didactic and self-aware as it is atmospheric and perversely enchanting, represents a real amalgam of narrative, layering influences and plot threads and American mythology into a deceptively beguiling nightmare vision of life just below the surface of the suburbs (so there's some Lynch in there). 

Set in the mid-1990s and, with an ingenious visual method, flashing back decades before, the story centers on Lee Harker (Maika Monroe), a young, tenacious and perhaps preternaturally intuitive FBI agent in rural Oregon. Following a disturbing door-knocking incident with her partner, Harker is selected by Agent Carter (Blair Underwood) to join a task force investigating a series of killings wherein a father or mother was compelled by unseen forces to murder their family. Stretching back to the 1960s, the horrific incidents are connected by a series of cryptograms with the titular signature.

Already sleep-deprived, haunted by unknown specters, struggling to maintain a relationship with her shut-in mother (Alicia Witt), Harker throws herself into the investigation, deciphering Longlegs' missive with shocking alacrity and discovering connections and commonalities among the victims that have eluded the rest of the bureau. But she also seems to be harboring secrets — seems to be, until we learn that she most certainly is — and maybe even an intimate knowledge of the killer, or at least the métier thereof. 

I've seen reference, subsequent to my viewing, to this being a new Silence of the Lambs, or something equally dismissive. And in fairness, I suppose there are structural parallels: young, troubled FBI agent, wild-as-hell nemesis, murders. But, as ever, I generally find such comparisons problematic both in their lack of intellectual exploration and in the unavoidable predisposition they create. In this case, particularly because the earlier film was such a cultural phenomenon, it can't but force a comparison and familiarity that may or may not (it's not) be fair to either work. Silence of the Lambs, like it or not, is an operatic actor's exercise. Grandiosity becomes its brand of subtlety, the whole thing so elevated in performance and style that we, as audience, almost have to accept its reality. 

In Longlegs, Perkins constantly exercises his own aesthetic methodology, moving the camera so constantly and gradually that we feel as unmoored and driven toward something terrible as our protagonist. The exteriors are photographed with the grandeur and menace I've only experienced in Pacific Northwest winters, when the sky seems as boundless as it does restrictive. And against this canvas, Monroe gives a jittery, self-assured performance of trauma survived, of innocence confronting evil, that remains unshakable. I'll refrain from describing Cage aside from saying that this part, like a number of his recent ones, is an indelible addition to the canon. 

The climax and resolution of the story lean into some tropes that, for younger viewers, will not seem familiar. While certain elements struck me as perhaps too-convenient, I wouldn't go so far as to call them hackneyed, if only because they haven't been leant on in modern movies for a number of decades. And really, if my only complaint is that certain narrative elements stir echoes in my memory, I should probably just shut up about it.  R. 101 M. BROADWAY. MILL CREEK.

John J. Bennett (he/him) is a movie nerd who loves a good car chase.

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