Maika Monroe has already starred in one classic horror of the modern age – 2014’s deeply unsettling It Follows. Now she has a second to add to her CV – Longlegs, the new film from writer-director Osgood Perkins. Like a cross between The Silence of the Lambs, Zodiac and Saw, it’s an infernally creepy ’90s-set serial killer tale. Happily, it also features Nicolas Cage in yet another batshit crazy role.
The film starts with a quote from the classic T. Rex song ‘Bang A Gong (Get It On)’ – including the immortal line “You’ve got the teeth of the hydra upon you” – before we glimpse Cage as Longlegs approaching a little girl. Even that sentence sounds disturbing, and Cage’s turn as this deranged fellow, heavily disguised under prosthetics and long straw-blonde hair, does nothing to displace that.
Longlegs is the centre of a manhunt as he’s been slaughtering families for 30 years, leaving a coded letter at each scene of the crime. Otherwise, there appears to be little to connect the murders, and even more curiously, there is no sign of forced entry at each location, suggesting Longlegs has powers beyond mere mortals. But given how sporadic these killings are, the trail has gone cold, much to the frustration of FBI investigator Agent Carter (Blair Underwood).
Hope arrives in the form of rookie agent Lee Harker (Monroe). “Highly intuitive”, according to Carter, she seems able to decode Longlegs’ disguised messages and may hold the key to finding the killer who’s stalked rural Oregon for three decades. “Longlegs is just a man – not a witch doctor,” says Carter, but is that really the case? Writer-director Perkins, who played the 12-year-old Norman Bates in 1983’s Psycho II, is clearly well-versed in serial killer movie lore: Monroe’s Lee Harker is a surefire nod to Jodie Foster’s Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs. But thanks to Cage’s out-there performance (never better than when he’s driving in a car screaming “Daddy! Mommy!” at the top of his voice), Longlegs adeptly distinguishes itself from its influences.
There are moments where Perkins does toy with typical horror tropes, not least the discovery of a porcelain doll that holds further clues to Longlegs’ identity. But these never stray towards cliché because Perkins ensures everything services a story that comes armed with at least one almighty twist. Measured in pacing and tone, his film also feels extremely moody thanks to the overcast skies captured by cinematographer Andrés Arochi.
At its heart, Monroe is superb as Harker, offering up a buttoned-down performance that never breaks. Hopefully, Longlegs doesn’t get her pigeonholed as a Scream Queen; she deserves more. As for Cage, also a producer here, it’s just another worthy addition to his canon of crazies. Despite limited screentime, it might just be his most bonkers role yet. “Is it scary being a lady FBI agent?” asks one little girl of Harker. Well, when you’re confronted with Cage’s Longlegs, it most certainly is.
Details
- Director: Osgood Perkins
- Starring: Maika Monroe, Nicolas Cage, Blair Underwood
- Release date: July 12 (in cinemas)