Several factors related to Longlegs and the way Osgood Perkins directed the film are simply fantastic. These include photography and frame composition, but also the glorious fact that this work again forced (or enticed) Nicholas Cage to show the world his true talent. Unlike a range of B-class films he made in recent years, Longlegs is a true work of art. Maika Monroe, as the lead character of the confused but driven FBI agent Lee Harker also provides a very impressionable psychological study.
Finally, the initial atmosphere and narrative mood hint at the film being inside of the New Weird genre, here Harker gets a hypnotic FBI test that determines whether or not she might be a psychic. All of these fit perfectly into a generic story of a series of horrific crimes where a mysterious being, known only as Longlegs, somehow forces families to murder each other. Here, the plot is reminiscent of things like the Southern Reach trilogy from the writer Jeff VanderMeer or video games like Control. In the first half of the film, Perkins wants to tell the audience that horrible things can and will happen, while forces committing these, just as the forces opposing those, might be unknowable to us.
But, as the film breaks into the second half, all of that synergy is somehow lost. The mystery shifts into occult and satanism but does so in a bland, stuttering manner. The focus of the characters is lost as seemingly all of them suddenly fall into some kind of unclear family drama buried deep in their past. Even Cage appears to be questioning his approach to the role of an intensely deranged person, finally reverting to bizarre impressionism that is again, kind of silly. As the end and the culmination draws near, the events get bloodier, but everything gets unintentionally funnier as well.
The finale itself is more akin to the forest critters from South Park who engage in blood orgies and exclaim “Hail Satan” than a thought-through New Weird horror story. The film does tie all of its loose ends and provides closure to the mystery, but that closure ends up more comical than scary. With that, Perkins managed to make a work of art that feels more similar to a Tales from the Crypt episode than one of the most cerebral horror films of 2024, which Longlegs so very much could have been.
