Oz Perkins’s Longlegs offers very few scares but is worth a watch for Nicholas Cage’s chilling performance as an occultist serial killer who preys on little girls. Longlegs isn't your typical horror thriller with jump scares but one that relies on creating an atmosphere with a lingering sense of danger.
The plot follows newbie FBI Agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) as she goes about looking for a serial killer nicknamed Longlegs (Nicholas Cage), allegedly involved in a string of murder-suicides of families across Oregon. After test reports suggest that she has psychic powers, Harker embarks on the case with a hunch that she is somehow connected to Longlegs from her childhood.
Director Perkins depicts horror by piecing together Harker’s suppressed childhood memories. The deeper she digs into Longlegs’ puzzles and comes closer to his twisted psyche, the more she spirals towards insanity.
Monroe’s FBI agent Harker is almost reminiscent of Jake Gyllenhaal’s Robert Graysmith in Zodiac. Alicia Witt plays her neurotic mother from whom she seems completely detached. Haunted by an incident from her childhood which she cannot remember, Harker is determined to seek answers, which finally brings her face-to-face with the erratic killer Longlegs, who makes her realise that her entire childhood was a lie.
In each of the family murders that Longlegs has been accused of, the father kills his wife and children before taking his own life. At the scene of crime, a cryptic letter with satanic symbols is found, signed ‘Longlegs’. With a drawn-out childish voice and long, tousled hair, Longlegs only targets young girls who were born on the 14th of any month. When they turn nine, he comes for their families within six days before or after the birthday.
The opening scene sets the stage and also hooks you from get go — a little girl with a polaroid camera follows a mysterious voice to the back of her house. Walking through a snowy landscape, she stumbles upon a whimsical man with a pale white face who tells her that it is almost her birthday. Cage’s face is only half shown as the scene is shot from the girl’s perspective, introducing the serial killer who will go on to wreak havoc on many lives.
Longlegs hides in plain sight and carries out what according to him are the plans of Satan, and Cage’s eccentricities might remind you of Pennywise from Stephen King’s It. While his appearance is brief, Cage makes an impact with his campy but nightmarish presence.
Perkins’s film is reminiscent of the bedtime stories of evil monsters that children grow up hearing. We see Cage making spooky dolls with metallic balls inside their heads and having an accomplice to execute his plans. The film aligns with fairy tale villains who stalk children in a twisted candy house or lurk in the shadows of a dark forest. While it is not as scary as you’d expect a horror film to be, Longlegs works as a disturbing fairy tale set in the real world that’s very close to home.
