LONGLEGS (2024)

Studio:   Neon
Director: Osgood Perkins
Writer:   Osgood Perkins
Producer: Dan Kagan, Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, Nicolas Cage, Dave Caplan, Chris Ferguson
Stars:    Maika Monroe, Blair Underwood, Alicia Witt, Nicolas Cage, Michelle Choi-Lee, Dakota Daulby, Kiernan Shipka

Review Score:

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Summary:

An intuitive FBI agent hunts a manipulative serial killer who has an unsettling connection to her childhood.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

PART ONE - HIS LETTERS

While canvassing a neighborhood with her partner Fisk, intuitive FBI agent Lee Harker gets a sudden hunch that the suspect they are looking for is in a specific house. Insisting on investigating himself rather than call in for backup, Fisk knocks on the door and is immediately shot in the face. Harker arrests the suspect, who voluntarily surrenders.

After undergoing a series of tests that determine she may have psychic abilities, Harker's superior Agent Carter assigns Harker to the baffling case of a serial killer known as "Longlegs." Through Carter's explanations and her own examination of the files, Harker learns that in ten instances over 30 years, a father had been inexplicably manipulated into brutally murdering his family before killing himself. The only things in common between the cases are that each family had a daughter with a birthday on the 14th and Longlegs left a coded message at each crime scene, despite never actually being present during the murders. Harker suspects Longlegs must have an accomplice.

Carter takes Harker to his house to meet his wife Anna and daughter Ruby. Ruby takes a liking to Harker and invites the agent to her upcoming birthday party.

Following a phone call between Harker and her mother Ruth, Longlegs sneaks inside Harker's home to leave behind a coded birthday card with a partial key for his cipher. From this, Harker is able to decode the Longlegs messages, although she does not tell Carter how she obtained the key when she decodes a new message at the crime scene of another murdered family.

PART TWO - ALL OF YOUR THINGS

Using occult symbology mapped over a calendar of murder dates, Harker identifies an algorithmic pattern in the Longlegs killings. In the coded messages, Harker also finds a repeated reference to "the fine time we had at the Camera family farm" where X's mark the spot. Harker believes Carrie Anne Camera, who was at school when her father murdered her family and thus survived the slaughter, may have seen Longlegs at the farm.

Carter and Harker visit the Camera family farm. Crucifixes they interpret as X's lead them to a barn. Underneath a floorboard, Carter and Harker find a disturbing, life-size doll resembling Carrie Anne Camera as a child. A forensic examiner dissects the handmade doll and finds a hollow metal sphere inside its head, although the agents are at a loss to understand its purpose.

Carter and Harker next visit Carrie Anne Camera, now an adult, at Water Rock Psychiatric Hospital. From an administrator, the agents learn Carrie Anne had been catatonic for years until she received an unidentified visitor just one day earlier, the same day the agents found the doll. The visitor signed the log with Lee Harker's name.

During a conversation between Harker and Carrie Anne, flashbacks show Carrie Anne's father beheading a cow while her mother stabbed the mysterious doll prior to her father killing a priest as well as Carrie Anne's mother. Harker asks about Carrie Anne's visitor. Carrie Anne speaks about him reverentially. She adds that she would do anything he asked, including jump out a window or kill Harker, and she hopes he will ask her to do something for the "Man down the Stairs." Harker also asks about the doll. Carrie Anne indicates she doesn't remember a doll, and cryptically claims neither does Harker.

Curious about her apparent personal connection to Longlegs, Carter confronts Harker about a police report filed by Harker's mother Ruth on January 13th, one day before her ninth birthday in 1974. At Carter's insistence, Harker visits Ruth to ask about the trespasser they found on their farm, but Ruth claims she doesn't remember anything from that day.

Among her childhood belongings, Harker finds a Polaroid she took of Longlegs when he came to the house in 1974. The photo launches a manhunt for Longlegs, who is taken into custody at a bus stop while carrying two suitcases full of Satanic writings.

During FBI questioning, Longlegs identifies himself as Dale Ferdinand Kobble. For 24 minutes, Longlegs sings "Happy Birthday" to Harker, confirming his odd obsession with her.

Still convinced he has an accomplice, and concerned that another set of murders is needed to complete his algorithm, Harker interviews Longlegs in an effort to obtain incriminating information. Longlegs makes cryptic references to Harker's "gift" and to a woman who also works for "Mr. Downstairs." Longlegs tells Harker to ask her "mommy" who the man downstairs is and proclaims, "Hail Satan!" before repeatedly bashing his head against the table until he dies.

PART THREE - BIRTHDAY GIRLS

Carter berates Harker over Longlegs's sudden suicide. He also informs her that Carrie Anne Camera jumped to her death during the interrogation.

Accompanied by Agent Browning, Harker returns to her mother's farm for help identifying Longlegs's accomplice. Ruth unexpectedly executes Agent Browning with a shotgun.

Harker finds her mother with a life-size doll of Harker from when she was a child. Ruth fires her gun at the doll's head, which causes a black mist to escape from Harker's real head.

A flashback reveals Longlegs was a dollmaker who supernaturally imbued his creations with the dark work of the Devil. When he came to their farm in 1974, Ruth made a deal with Longlegs to spare Harker's life in exchange for her help murdering other families. Ruth would pose as a nun to bring Longlegs's dolls as supposed birthday gifts to the victims. "From his hiding place within the dolls, the Devil did the rest" while Ruth watched to ensure events played out like Longlegs intended.

Harker recovers from unconsciousness to answer a phone call that reminds her it is Ruby Carter's birthday. Harker rushes to the Carter house where she finds the family entranced by a doll brought by Harker's mother. Harker futilely tries warning Carter that Ruth is Longlegs's accomplice. Ruth claims she continues to do this in Satan's name for Harker's benefit.

Carter stabs his wife Anna to death. Harker shoots Carter to the ground. Ruth moves toward her daughter with a knife, but Harker shoots her in the head. Harker tries shooting Ruby's doll too, but her gun is out of bullets. Harker remembers Longlegs singing "Happy Birthday" and hailing Satan as she prepares to leave with Ruby.

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Review:

There's one every year. That one genre movie whose inescapable buzz, whether generated by a groundswell of grassroots marketing or a series of advance screenings where early word endlessly overwhelms online discourse, hypes the horror to such lofty heights, it's improbable for the film to sustain acclaim once the public puts eyes on it. For 2024, that film was "Longlegs," a movie so soaked in shrieks about supposed scariness, macabre mystique, and an incredible incarnation of Nicolas Cage as a grotesque psychopath, it sounded like you'd risk damning your soul to the darkest depths of Hell just by daring to watch it. Getting back to even keel requires blocking this noise as much as possible, lest expectations be put in a position where the movie can never match what one's imagination invents.

Comparisons to "The Silence of the Lambs" are well founded, not just because "Longlegs" pits an underexperienced FBI agent against a cunning serial killer, but because the movie also takes place in the 1990s, adding to the echo that their setups are cut from the same cloth. Maika Monroe plays Lee Harker, a determined career woman whose remarkable hunches suggest she's possibly psychic, or at least highly intuitive. Recognizing her unique talent, Harker's boss Agent Carter assigns her to the baffling case of Longlegs, the nickname for a mysterious man whose crimes have puzzled the Bureau for decades.

In ten instances over 30 years, a father has inexplicably murdered his family before killing himself. These events have two things in common. All of the families had a daughter whose birthday fell on the 14th, and all of the crime scenes contained a Zodiac-like cipher signed by Longlegs. Longlegs himself never held any knives or pulled any triggers, leading authorities to wonder how he managed to drive these family men to commit brutal butcherings.

With her memory muddled, Harker knows a hazy childhood encounter links her to Longlegs, except she isn't sure how. Longlegs confirms this connection when he leaves Harker a cryptic birthday card, and signs her name in the visitor log at a psychiatric hospital. Finding the line between what happened as a little girl and what's happening now appears key to identifying Longlegs, although the secrets being hidden might be more unsettling than the murders themselves.

"Longlegs" retains the police procedural format "The Silence of the Lambs" has, except this movie is actually an arthouse drama sneakily crafted to resemble a mainstream thriller, even though it really isn't. "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" is misremembered for being more graphic than it is, since it's largely bloodless and only one person dies by chainsaw. "Longlegs" pulls off a similar illusion here. The film consistently evokes intangible unease to keep viewers unsettled, but it does so while keeping tangible terror to a bare minimum.

Depictions of murder only arrive in the form of an FBI agent's sudden execution early on and then aren't seen again until a flashback roughly 50 minutes into the runtime. True to form for his character, we don't witness Longlegs directly doing anything despicable, either. In his limited scenes, Cage presents Longlegs as a disturbing personality purely through bizarre behavior like maniacally singing "Happy Birthday" or playing peek-a-boo with a nonplussed cashier, not through overtly criminal actions.

"Longlegs" follows this pattern of stretching out suggestive suspense, then puncturing intense atmosphere with a sudden shock before anyone realizes it's been x minutes since something notable happened. Arthouse horror usually manufactures mood through empty imagery using long establishing shots, unmotivated lighting, or other artificial means that aren't always backed up by a distinct narrative. "Longlegs" instead makes mood through cinematography that's organic to a scene's staging. Negative space looms large, whether as excessive headroom that makes faces seem small in the frame, as a doorframe where moments might be slightly obscured, or as empty stairwells behind a turned back. Your rattled mind starts seeing these spaces as hiding spots for unspecified danger, which creates the sensation of dread bubbling beneath your skin.

"Longlegs" isn't all smoke and mirrors centered around careful camera placement though. In addition to a spookily Satanic story, the film features engaging performances, not the least of which comes from Blair Underwood as Agent Harker's superior. Underwood puts on an acting clinic in under 15 minutes, and he does so by choosing inflections and expressions for his small amount of dialogue, creating an obviously intelligent persona who knows more than he lets on despite Harker actually doing all of the legwork.

Where "Longlegs" is likely to lose viewers is in its conclusion, with this being an uncommon case where no explanation at all might have been preferable to the explanation given for Longlegs's devilish dealings. Writer/director Osgood Perkins has built his career in frightful features on ambiguous artfulness that can be a bit shallow to those who want their fiction to have clear beginnings, middles, and ends. Perkins attempts to placate those people by revealing the details behind the murders, but it's a confounding climax certain to leave some unsatisfied and others with new questions given the abstract answers.

As films wrapped up with neat little bows go, "Longlegs" definitely does not fit that bill. It's possible Perkins started shooting without knowing exactly how his tale would turn out, considering there are end credits for an FBI agent with the same last name as Longlegs and an adult version of a young girl, both of whom are not seen in the final cut. Maybe this is merely a matter where viewers must settle for the overall eeriness of a strange cinematic experience rather than a strong stab at substantial storytelling.

Review Score: 75

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