Whether or not you believe the hype around Oz Perkins' Longlegs, you should appreciate that it's happening. Like I said about the chatter around last year's Talk to Me, 'tis a sign of better times that this much of the summer movie buzz revolves around a low-budget horror film -- complete with memes wherein people with long legs pull up to buy tickets. (2024 is an especially horror-heavy year.)
Be that as it may, I understand if people find the hype obnoxious. I get it. The early reviews sound more like advertisements than assessments, and the promises of the most terrifying movie of the year seem fatuous when we just had another "most terrifying movie of the year" in the form of The First Omen.
Still, the praise is largely on point. Longlegs truly is a film that seems to radiate evil -- reminding us that it "exists everywhere" as numerous reviewers put it. The film is transfixingly doom-laden and unnerving -- though not as free from jumpscares as I was led to believe -- and while I understand it isn't entirely original (I've read that the plot roughly mirrors that of Kyoshi Kurosawa's Cure, unseen by me), it achieves a vibe that is entirely its own.
What none of you had told me was that the film is also pretty damn hilarious. If you're looking for a Nicolas Cage performance that is hysterical and disturbing in equal measure, Longlegs is for you.
In the eponymous role of a Satan-worshipping serial killer with an algorithmic method to his madness, he gives his best performance since Mandy -- hopefully awakening those who only know him as a "meme" actor or "guy who says yes to all kinds of direct-to-video shlock" instead of the powerful force he is.
As Ebert once elucidated, "he's daring and fearless in his choice of roles, and unafraid to crawl out on a limb, saw it off and remain suspended in air. No one else can project inner trembling so effectively." I'm prepared to argue that his performance in Longlegs best reflects this sentiment. Yes, he does a lot of phoned-in DVD trash, but we all have bills to pay.
Meanwhile, Alicia Witt and Maika Monroe need to be in the Scream Queen Hall of Fame, supposing they aren't already recognized as such. However, sometimes the delivery doesn't land and/or plays rather awkwardly in a way that doesn't seem intentional, and this isn't my only problem with the film.
For all the impressively disturbing sequences and the "evil" energy that rivals that of The First Omen, the movie goes for the cheap scares numerous times. At one point, the special-agent protagonists come across a mannequin that may have supernatural qualities. It contains an orb that gives off some sort of strange signal (not dissimilar from something the police offers on Twin Peaks may discover) but more importantly, it seems to have been programmed to produce a scare chord when it opens its eyes a little bit. The movie has some well-execute pop scares too, but oftentimes, we can see the "BOO!" moment coming, which is unfortunate when the rest of the movie is so effective.
So is it the best horror movie of 2024? Not really. I'd say I Saw the TV Glow probably holds that honor right now; even then, my most trusted sources indicate that Coralie Fargeat's The Substance may change my mind on that by the end of the year. In my view, the most disappointing thing about Longlegs, vs other 2024 horror films, is that it didn't give us the same meltdown amongst the "Satanic Panic" Karens and Christian homeschoolers as Immaculate did.
Be that as it may, I understand if people find the hype obnoxious. I get it. The early reviews sound more like advertisements than assessments, and the promises of the most terrifying movie of the year seem fatuous when we just had another "most terrifying movie of the year" in the form of The First Omen.
Still, the praise is largely on point. Longlegs truly is a film that seems to radiate evil -- reminding us that it "exists everywhere" as numerous reviewers put it. The film is transfixingly doom-laden and unnerving -- though not as free from jumpscares as I was led to believe -- and while I understand it isn't entirely original (I've read that the plot roughly mirrors that of Kyoshi Kurosawa's Cure, unseen by me), it achieves a vibe that is entirely its own.
What none of you had told me was that the film is also pretty damn hilarious. If you're looking for a Nicolas Cage performance that is hysterical and disturbing in equal measure, Longlegs is for you.
In the eponymous role of a Satan-worshipping serial killer with an algorithmic method to his madness, he gives his best performance since Mandy -- hopefully awakening those who only know him as a "meme" actor or "guy who says yes to all kinds of direct-to-video shlock" instead of the powerful force he is.
As Ebert once elucidated, "he's daring and fearless in his choice of roles, and unafraid to crawl out on a limb, saw it off and remain suspended in air. No one else can project inner trembling so effectively." I'm prepared to argue that his performance in Longlegs best reflects this sentiment. Yes, he does a lot of phoned-in DVD trash, but we all have bills to pay.
Meanwhile, Alicia Witt and Maika Monroe need to be in the Scream Queen Hall of Fame, supposing they aren't already recognized as such. However, sometimes the delivery doesn't land and/or plays rather awkwardly in a way that doesn't seem intentional, and this isn't my only problem with the film.
For all the impressively disturbing sequences and the "evil" energy that rivals that of The First Omen, the movie goes for the cheap scares numerous times. At one point, the special-agent protagonists come across a mannequin that may have supernatural qualities. It contains an orb that gives off some sort of strange signal (not dissimilar from something the police offers on Twin Peaks may discover) but more importantly, it seems to have been programmed to produce a scare chord when it opens its eyes a little bit. The movie has some well-execute pop scares too, but oftentimes, we can see the "BOO!" moment coming, which is unfortunate when the rest of the movie is so effective.
So is it the best horror movie of 2024? Not really. I'd say I Saw the TV Glow probably holds that honor right now; even then, my most trusted sources indicate that Coralie Fargeat's The Substance may change my mind on that by the end of the year. In my view, the most disappointing thing about Longlegs, vs other 2024 horror films, is that it didn't give us the same meltdown amongst the "Satanic Panic" Karens and Christian homeschoolers as Immaculate did.
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