A Satanic Portrait of a Serial Killer

Maika Monroe in "Longlegs"
Photo Credit: Imdb.com

When it comes to movies that mix crime-thrillers with horror, there’s so much potential to craft something that sticks with the audience because you have two genres come together that can depict disturbing acts of which people can be capable.  Whether it’s Jonathan Demme’s “The Silence of the Lambs,” David Fincher’s “Seven,” or the latter’s based-on-a-true-story “Zodiac,” these movies absorb you in the narratives of their characters as you watch them traverse the dangers of what the worst of humanity has to offer.

Writer-director Osgood Perkins is the latest filmmaker to do this with his horror-thriller, “Longlegs,” a film that’s awash in atmosphere, has great scares, and is boosted by two great lead performances, especially a very disturbing villain.

Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) is a special agent for the FBI in Oregon.  When she’s assigned to a case that has her tracking down a serial killer who’s involved in the occult, Lee will make a discovery more shocking than she could’ve imagined.

Monroe delivers a performance that shows Lee as reserved to a point where you want to peer inside her head to unravel what’s going on.  She brings a strong sense of mystery to her character through her careful, probing gaze as Lee goes about her job and attempts to fathom the frightening implications of what she’s investigating.  Behind her gaze is also a sadness that hints at someone who’s seen things that no person should see.  Just as she tries to sift through the clues, we try to understand her and her way of thinking, resulting in a lead performance that keeps you invested in the nightmare through which Lee has to delve.

Nicolas Cage has an absolute horrific blast in the role of a Satanic worshipper.  We’ve seen Cage go all-in with certain performances where you have to admire how much he’s willing to let loose, and this runs along those lines, but with a terrifying edge.  Right from his brief first appearance, Cage sets the tone for the bone-rattling chills that he’ll give you for the rest of the movie.  You keep wanting to see him again and experience what his performance has to offer, but you also feel like you want to put it off for as long as possible because you don’t want to see what terrible acts his character might commit.  He gives a performance of someone whose brain seems to have been tinkered with by the devil himself, and you’ll be left shaken once the film arrives at the point where it gives you the full dose of his crazed monstrousness.

The screenplay by Perkins brings you through a labyrinth of clues that implores you to pay close attention to what’s going on, making you want to piece everything together even while other stuff is being presented to you.  This is a scenario that pins your eyes to the screen from the very start as you try to catch whatever you can and figure out how it might fit into the bigger picture.  Even if you notice a lot upon your first viewing, Perkins crafts a narrative that will surely warrant a second viewing so you can see what you missed.  This screenplay engages its viewers to try to figure out the mystery every bit as much as it wants you to figure out its lead character, adding layers on both a storytelling front and a dramatic one.  Although pursuing serial killers is something we’ve seen several times in film, don’t let the simplicity of the plot synopsis turn you away because this movie offers much more than I can explain without giving anything away.

The cinematography by Andrés Arochi, who works with Perkins for the first time, gives us camerawork that always has you scanning the frame to either look at a space where someone sinister could appear, or take in the setting to catch as many details as possible that could help you piece the mystery together.  Arochi makes the most of the film’s dark interiors that have you feel the unease of what could be lurking in the shadows, but he also makes effective use of the exteriors. With the story taking place in a rural region of Oregon, Arochi uses his lensing to highlight the disquieting sense of isolation that you can feel outside in such a location, knowing how alone you could be and realizing that danger can come from anywhere.

When talking about the directorial nature of this film, you have to recognize two sets of films.  The first group is the one from the beginning of this review that mentions films that blend crime and horror, and what “Longlegs” does is bring its own distinct and disturbing style, joining the ranks of those chilling stories.  The second group includes Perkins’ other three films, “The Blackcoat’s Daughter,” “I’m the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House,” and “Gretel and Hansel”; and just like with those movies, “Longlegs” shows Perkins’ skill in loading his films with haunting imagery and a sense of dread that follows you from the start of the film to the end.  Mixing with this dread is the excellent use of quiet in certain scenes, which creates a sense of unease as we brace ourselves for whatever might disturb that quiet.  The mood that Perkins instills is one where it seems like all of the presence of good has left the community, only to be replaced by an evil that’s calculating and merciless.

With “Longlegs,” Perkins has you feel the combined rush of being scared and trying to figure out the puzzle, creating a horror-movie experience to which you’ll want to return right away so that you can feel that rush all over again.

Grade: A