Longlegs (Osgood Perkins: 2024)

 

A very anticipated movie, by what I understood, and, so far the only movie I went to see twice at the cinema in 2024. Longlegs is a horror/thriller by the director behind The Black Coat’s Daughter, a movie I reviewed here a few years back. It’s more atmospheric than scary, like the above mentioned movie, but it’s the type of horror I prefer in movies and literature, the immersive type that, literature-wise goes back to Henry James and H.P. Lovecraft.

And in cinema, there are many predecessors to this type of horror/thriller to mention here, in order to focus on the plot itself, if only briefly. One of the things that I found strange is the quoting of a T. Rex lyric that appears on screen before the movie begins. Just seems out of place, but also, many of the clues that are presented to the main character, a socially awkward F.B.I. agent Lee Harker with seemingly psychic powers, also seem to be out of place, until you revisit the movie and realize that they made sense. Maika Monroe plays this character in a way that makes one feel as though one is her shows the entire movie.

The story itself is that of a F.B.I. agent helping her superiors track down a serial killer that, although is not present of the crime scenes, always leaves clues behind that revert to some sort of influence on the murder-suicides that have occurred. It is a weird, confusing and, mostly, supernatural story that has at the centre a scary (and completely immersed in make-up) Nicholas Cage.

In conclusion, this an amazing thriller with horror and supernatural elements that is worth several watches in order to understand each detail that it hides, sometimes in plain sight.