By Dimitra Gatzelaki,
January 5th, 2024. Neon uploads a cryptic, 40-second video captioned “every year there is another”. In it, a polaroid-style retro family picture, mother-father-daughter, gradually closing in on the latter. Over it, eerie music frames a 911 call. The picture shifts: a polaroid of a girl’s legs, lying on the ground. Shifts again: a crimson background and black, indecipherable characters spelling something out. This is the first of many links of the marketing campaign for Oz Perkins’ horror film, Longlegs.
The film hit the cinemas in mid-July, finally satisfying the itching curiosity of horror fans about who Longlegs is and what these obscure symbols actually mean. Neon (the production company) threw a lot into its marketing campaign, which brings to mind the campaigns for Smile (2022) or even Barbie (2023). And they didn’t limit themselves on teasers: they actually created a website called “The Birthday Murders”, which gives some extra lore about the film, and more specifically the victims’ backgrounds. The company was pretty ingenious with it, since to the unsuspecting visitor it looks real (and creepy) enough, while its overly simple design purposefully echoes the first websites in the 90s. But, with every film that goes heavy on marketing, one question always comes up: is it worth the hype?
Longlegs follows Lee Harker (Maika Monroe), a young, somewhat antisocial FBI agent tasked with solving the case of a series of gruesome family murders by the serial killer, Longlegs (Nicolas Cage). Harker’s enigmatic psychic abilities (in one of the first scenes, she senses almost intuitively the house Longlegs acted in) lead her to the serial killer’s trail. As she gets closer and closer to uncovering him, she discerns his mild obsession with her, triggering a chain reaction that unveils deeply buried, disturbing secrets about her own past.
And while the film’s plot borrows elements from the classic detective story, its horror greets the viewer at every corner. Nicolas Cage’s Longlegs himself is a “potentially iconic horror villain”, a thoroughly uncanny figure that at times subtly echoes Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker (and that’s a compliment). Longlegs’ horror is amplified with the help of cinematography, as eerie, ominous shots abound, as well as editing, which creates some pretty intense jumpscares when you least expect it. But where Perkins really hits the mark is with psychological horror: the viewer cannot help but identify with Lee Harker who, even though she plays the hunter, the one in charge of the situation, appears to be hunted, exposed, prey. Gradually, she grows as powerless as the viewer, paralyzed in front of the crimes being committed.
Like any good horror film that respects itself, Longlegs also blends in a supernatural element, but one that’s cryptic, unexplained and –mostly– needless. It leaves many questions unanswered, and, while this does hold some appeal, it also makes the plot feel incomplete. However, it does tie in well with the film’s 90s atmosphere and the cinematography that constantly hints at something “downstairs” with its sharp camera angles and downwards movement. And it’s pretty clear that Perkins wanted to convey the overall feel of classic 90s films like Se7en (1995) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991). The heavy, nagging undertone of intertextuality is ever-present, mostly in the strange, unarticulated intimacy between agent and murderer, as if they’re tied together by a long, invisible thread.
The biggest issue with this film, however, is the final act. Perkins spends a great part of the film building up his plot, which “erupts” around the middle point. With Longlegs firmly established as the horror villain and Nicolas Cage’s standout performance, everything else tends to… fall short. As Wendy Ide puts it in her article for The Guardian, “since there is nothing else in the movie remotely as terrifying as Cage singing Happy Birthday and cackling like a maniac while wearing a rubbery facial prosthesis, [Longlegs’] bloody final act seems oddly anticlimactic”.
So, to return to the original question – did Perkins’ film measure up to the hype? Well, it definitely measured up to some hype, and that’s because Neon created these over-the-top expectations to get people to buy tickets. Longlegs, in a sense, is a victim of its own marketing; however, if you go in without expecting to watch the scariest horror film of the year, you won’t be disappointed.
Reference
- Longlegs review – Maika Monroe and Nicolas Cage grip in brooding horror thriller. The Guardian. Available here
