Long Legs (2024) - Movie Review

What if I told you that this film made me say words I never imagined saying in my worst nightmare.. Nic Cage ruined the movie.

Let’s discuss.

Longlegs is a 2024 supernatural serial killer / creature feature horror film brought to us by writer / director Osgood Perkins. You would know him from his festival darling films like 2020’s Gretel and Hansel and 2015’s The Black Coat’s Daughter—Or not, as his films are normally not huge draws at the box office. However his films are shot incredibly well with fantastic use of natural light. His downfall has always been the storytelling.

So, when I heard that his new serial killer movie was a massive hit at the anemic box office, I was hopeful, but hopes were made to be dashed.

The film focuses on Agent Lee Parker, a fresh on the streets FBI special agent whose psychic abilities lead her to be assigned to a long running serial killer case. The killer somehow annihilates entire families without leaving a mark, it’s as if he gets the family’s to kill themselves. When Lee starts to see similarities between these crimes and the trauma experienced in her childhood, she enters a mind bending web of violence and brutality. Will she be able to solve the riddle before the killer finishes his ritual, or will she fall into the spider’s web?

I know this is going to be an unpopular opinion, but Longlegs is the most overhyped movie since It Follows and despite the overwhelmingly positive reviews comparing it to 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs, it doesn’t come close to the greatness of that genre-defining film.

It’s another beautifully shot movie with an intriguing premise, but it falls flat in the second act.

The script is somehow lacking in dialogue, but overflowing in exposition. Outside of Blair Underwood, all of the actors are just there to be robotic exposition machines or meat for the beast. No one in this movie is substantial, and no one’s life has meaning. The main characters got killed, and the people I saw the film with just shrugged.

This film breaks off my love affair with Maika Monroe, she’s terrible in this movie. I don’t think it’s her fault—the script gives her nothing. She’s supposed to be autistic, I think? That’s the only way I could figure out why she is so blasé about everything. She’s supposed to be traumatized, but not all traumatized people become silent automatons who don’t show emotion even when friends are being stabbed to death. I was the victim of an attempted kidnapping when I was a child. Did it cause me to clam up? No, I immediately signed up for Karate and MMA training. This portrayal makes 0 sense, as without any social skills, she wouldn’t have graduated from Quantico. I know multiple FBI special agents, and social skills are one of the various requirements.

This is a mystery-box movie that asks a ton of questions, but doesn’t answer most, if any.

It’s as if the filmmakers thought mystery could take the place of world-building. However, if you don’t give any definite details, then ambiguity is just a practice in lazy writing. Case in point—The film establishes that the lead character, played by Maika Monroe, is psychic. In the first ten minutes of the film, she’s shown to be a powerful psychic who locates a suspect in a crowded neighborhood in seconds. That’s impressive. Then, at the 20-minute mark, her boss at the FBI says that she’s a psychic and that’s why he assigned her to the Longlegs task force.

“Mr. Zach, how many times does this come up in the movie again?”

“Never.”

That’s right, nothing comes of it. Her psychic power quickly turns to an achilles heel. Her psychic powers transform into the old horror stereotype of blacking out anytime there’s spooky music—which is also never explained. Apparently, these metal balls emit magical-satanic-psychic-energy that drive people crazy and they are installed in this intricate life-sized dolls of the targeted family’s youngest daughters. Somehow the useless, obvious, and completely unbelievable villain hand made these giant dolls and forced this magical orbs in the basement he lives in.

That brings me to The Ragemeister, Nicholas Cage. He’s terrible in this film, and neither the script nor the director did anything to help.. His initial appearance is extremely well done, as the upper half of his face is obscured. Which makes the opening exchange uncomfortable, but then, before the first act is concluded, we get to ride shotgun with the killer as they go to harass a local shopkeeper’s daughter. They then proceed to have a patented Nic Cage freakout on the way home. Here’s the problem—Nic Cage doesn’t stick to an accent here. He slips in and out of his normal Nic Cage voice randomly, which completely breaks the tension. Oh, and the facial applications used to make him look like whatever Long Legs is supposed to be—are so poorly done. You can see the seams, and the finishing details are rough, and since they chose to show his face for most of the movie. By the time the final confrontation, he’s overexposed and limp.

The twist of the mother being the accomplice was so predictable. Even my 75-year-old father called it out in the first act of the film. It didn’t help that Alicia Witt’s performance was somehow both hammy and wooden. The first time you see her, it’s obvious that she’s bad. There’s no warmth, no chemistry between her and her supposed daughter. Even estranged or squabbling families have a sort of chemistry that doesn’t go away. A way of speaking to each other that’s natural, not lame goth poetry.

The first act was good, but halfway through the second act, it came apart.

I feel like this movie was chopped up to hell, because there are so many plot lines left hanging and zero explanations given. I mean, we’re told Long Legs is satanic, but there’s maybe one pentagram shown, and then they just say hail satan a bunch. There’s no reference to any actual satanic practice, no information on how he discovered the magical ball formula, or where he learned to carve perfect human replicas in the French Marionette style.

Near the end, Lee figures out that shooting the doll and breaking the orb breaks the spell—and yet, she has about 10 minutes to shoot the doll given to her bosses daughter—knowing that her boss and his wife will kill each other immediately, but she just stands there quivering. She literally does nothing this entire film but provided useless exposition that just overcomplicates things.

If they had just left it at a simple, creepy serial killer—we only ever see the bottom half of his face—who uses hypnosis through a Tiny Tim song to control children and orders them to kill their families—it would have been so much better. Instead we got this mystery box bullshit that takes itself way too serious.

In The Silence of the Lambs, Clarice Starling is a smart, motivated woman. She’s develops cunning and courage as the film progresses. She proves to her superior that she deserved her spot with the Bureau.

It’s called a heroes journey. It allows the audience to build a connection with the character. Yes, she took losses, but she learned from each one and by the end of the movie runs the gauntlet of her mistakes to claim victory.

In Long Legs, the main character is just a damsel in distress who only takes L’s.

I was so disappointed by this film.

What a waste.