Oz Perkins’ Flawed But Creepy Thriller Gets Under Your Skin [Review] — World of Reel

Amidst all of the hype surrounding the movie, it’d be greatest to barely decrease your expectations relating to Osgood Perkins’ “Longlegs.” It’s not the second coming of horror, neither is it the masterpiece some style websites could have led you to imagine. Its setup is just too acquainted, counting on serial killer tropes, with too many components getting combined into the story.

With that stated, taken by itself deserves, “Longlegs” is kind of good. Perkins is aware of tips on how to body and block the hell out of his movies. In his model of the serial-killer thriller, he makes use of the grisly realism of previous classics, and even finally ends up flirting with the supernatural. The selection to all the time have everybody in the course of the body is deeply unsettling; this consequently has the wide-open areas round them steeped in dread.

I gained’t spoil a lot on this evaluation since the easiest way to enter “Longlegs” is to not know a factor about it. That’s what the barrage of cryptic advertising has hinted at: eerie ambiguity. Sensible transfer on the a part of Neon, because the much less you understand, the higher.

Divided into three chapters, the movie begins with a disturbing prologue, shot in 4:3 side ratio. Perkins solely provides us a partial glimpse of the movie’s villain —cropping him off on the head — as he approaches his subsequent sufferer on her ninth birthday. His clownish demeanor hints at a deranged and troubled thoughts.

The barebones of the plot revolve round rookie FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe). Her robust instinct, which not too long ago led to capturing a wished killer, promotes her to a case like no different. She’s tasked by her boss, Agent Carter (Blair Underwood), who calls her “half-psychic,” to analyze a beguiling collection of crimes, in household houses. Ten homes, ten completely different households, with husbands killing wives and youngsters earlier than taking their very own lives. There’s no proof pointing to compelled entry. Nonetheless, in each homicide scene a letter, written in code, and signed “Longlegs,” is discovered. One other connection has all ten households having a murdered lady born on the 14th of the month.

The puzzling query Lee and Carter have might be the identical one you should be asking your self proper now: If nobody broke into the houses, then how did these letters present up?

And so, Lee, who additionally occurs to be born on the 14th, unhealthily obsesses over the case, diving deep into its occult mysteries. Monroe, an actress who’s starred in robust horror movies (“It Follows,” “The Visitor” “Watcher”), has by no means performed a personality fairly like this one. Lee is quiet, unassuming and coldly indifferent from others. There’s all the time immense worry in her eyes, and it by no means actually adjustments, she by no means smiles, and very like the viewer, senses the worst is but to come back.

It’s not a giant secret that the serial killer, a loner dollmaker, is performed right here by Nicolas Cage, in a satanically gonzo riff on Buffalo Invoice. It’s initially considerably of a distraction to have Cage within the position, however he finally ends up stealing many scenes because the faint-looking psychopath. He very a lot goes full-Cage right here, wanting and sounding like a glam rocker from hell. Whether or not Perkins likes it or not, this efficiency is sure to be memed to loss of life.

Perkins, taking pictures in comparable vogue to his 2017 creeper “The Blackcoat’s Daughter,” is an attention-grabbing case research of a filmmaker. He doesn’t essentially use ingenious or contemporary new methods of taking pictures his movies, however, watching them, you’ll be able to truthfully inform they have been directed by him. They’re all slow-burns, stuffed with nihilism, static pictures and dread-inducing environment. Andrés Arochi Tinajero’s cinematography, typically taking pictures by way of doorways or home windows, is a key part of Perkins’ total imaginative and prescient right here.

There’s a sense of familiarity to “Longlegs,” particularly within the first half — that’s why it retains being in comparison with “Silence of the Lambs,” and “Se7en.” Osgood’s movie owes a terrific debt to those classics, to not point out the satanic cinema that got here out of the Seventies. Nonetheless, for no matter flaws the setup might need, issues finally take a stunning flip, and Osgood diabolically flips the switches on us within the movie’s searing second half.

What “Longlegs” finally quantities to is a stylishly realized descent into hell, stuffed with memorable horror imagery, deeply unsettling undertones and a grueling soundscape. It’s a quietly unnerving movie that might have most likely benefited from much less advertising buzz. Regardless, it glues your eyes to the display screen and manages to subvert no matter you thought was coming subsequent. Its payoff is wholly unpredictable. [B/B+]