Longlegs Review

“I’ll be waiting.” – Longlegs

Oh, how I miss the good old days, when I’d have known about movies like this one weeks in advance thanks to my regular subscription to Fangoria. I only happened to check out the trailer online because I was looking for a movie to possibly make a double bill, and I was intrigued by the title. As it turned out, Longlegs was the very definition of serendipity, the happy accident because the film I had just seen minutes before the screening of this one was In a Violent Nature. More details on that shambolic mess here.

The trailer seemed odd, although the film is produced by and stars Nicolas Cage, he barely features in it. His participation seemed played down, which is strange given his status as a box office draw. If that was a ploy to pique audience curiosity, it certainly worked on me, reinforcing my interest in what seemed to be a serial killer thriller. (And I’m always going to see those.)

Let’s talk about Nicolas Cage for a moment. He’s always been one of those actors that strange as it may seem, I like more than I think I do. It’s only recently I’ve realised how much I enjoy his movies. I mean, I’ve always liked movies like Face Off, Con-Air and The Rock, sure. I’m even one of the few people who appear to like Ghost Rider (The sequel Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, not so much.) But The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent kind of shone a whole new spotlight on him as far as I was concerned and I realised I’d either undervalued his work, or taken it for granted. I actually dreaded his appearance as Dracula in Renfield as I mentioned in my review here – but his unique style fit the film perfectly. Now, as a serial killer he turns in what I will openly call his best performance to date.

Set in the 1990s, Longlegs begins with a prologue set in the ‘70s, where a young girl encounters a strange, long-haired man who is both erratic and menacing. This is Longlegs (Nicolas Cage) – and he knows it’s soon her birthday. Her mother intervenes and sends her to the house. the little girl is Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) and as an adult, she is a newly recruited FBI agent, who shows signs of clairvoyance. She is assigned to a decades-long case involving bizarre murder/suicides, involving ordinary, wholesome families. In these cases, the father has slaughtered his wife and kids before taking his own life. Harker determines that all the cases have something in common. All of them involve families with a daughter, and the murder/suicides have all taken place within six days of her ninth birthday. When written out on a calendar, the dates make the outline of an occult symbol.

Longlegs, is a Satanic occultist, claiming to work for the man downstairs, as he puts it. He presents each little girl with a lifelike doll in the image of the child who receives it, and inside the doll is a sphere containing a Satanic energy that causes the father in each case to do what he does.

The plot is clever, twisted and original. It’ll keep you guessing, as there’s quite a bit more to it than I’m revealing here. Oh, and be warned – don’t get too comfortable and cosy, because every so often, there’s an almost subliminal couple of frames of snakes slipped in that will cause a few inches of daylight between your rear end and the seat you’re on. If you have a snake phobia, you’ll probably run screaming for the exit.

But it’s not the unexpected subliminal snakes that are the most disquieting, it’s Nicolas Cage as Longlegs. His jerky, spasmodic movements, his insane high pitched squealing dialogue delivery in the middle of an otherwise normal speech give the perfect performance of someone who’s dangerously unhinged. In fact, it dawned on me during the screening that Cage would be perfect in the role of The Joker in a Batman movie. He IS The Joker!

What compliments his performance here is the prosthetic makeup he wears that has altered his appearance so much, along with a long, stringy wig, that he looks like Marilyn Manson the way he looks nowadays – y’know like a dishevelled spinster aunt with evil intent. The still below is literally a screen grab of his first appearance in the film.

This is a horror thriller worth checking out.

Rob Rating = 9