Longlegs Review: Nicolas Cage Crawls Under Your Skin in This Hypnotic, Unnerving Tale

Longlegs, gaining its traction from the hyperbole spilling out of early screenings, is marketed as "the scariest film of the decade".

The tale from Osgood Perkins about the eponymous serial killer and the FBI agent chasing him down has caught the eye of everyone looking for a thrill at the theater this summer.

From its opening shot, it's evident that Longlegs wants to unnerve, unsettle and crawl under your skin. With the vast open spaces, the distorted imagery, and the grueling soundscape, Perkins has meticulously poured over every facet of his magnum opus to make a statement in the genre.

We reap the rewards of his work through this utterly compelling character study, led by Maika Monroe as Lee Harker, who saddles our curiosity and carries us while remaining impenetrable. We feel bad for watching her walk into the madness. Monroe's face tells us that we are not welcome here, this place isn't safe, we mustn't lean into the unique inquisitiveness of fear, but we do. We end up on this twisted funfair ride filled with dread and anxiety with her, leading us to scream, "We want to get off!".

Perkins doesn't deal in cheap. He doesn't shock us just for the sake of it or make us jump out of our skin with no rhyme or reason. Longlegs is smart, respectful filmmaking at its finest — a hypnotic level of discomfort which has you struggling to look away no matter how desperate you get to free yourself from the terror.

It cannot be overstated how masterful the framing is throughout. The choice to house everyone in the middle with deeply unsettling, wide open space around them makes us feel that at any second, something rotten might happen.

As he builds the dread in framing, Perkins crafts our emotion through the cut, with Longlegs' presence building up expertly. He doesn't throw us in at the deep end with the "monster". He leaves us traces, making us the victims, ushering us into the same terror Monroe's Harker experiences in every step she takes.

While the film is deeply unnerving, it's also unexpectedly emotional. Cage's stardom — which could easily be distracting — helps not hinder him in this, for it pulls out empathy and depth in his performance that could easily manifest as hatred in the hands of an unrecognizable face. He cares, so we care, and while Perkins' doesn't lean too far into this, its surprising tenderness in places makes it all the more horrifying.

It is hard to separate films from the climate they are released in. Every movie is a product of its time, and Longlegs — while not overtly interested in politics — feels like it has something subtle to say about the landscape of North America. The imagery of lost terrains and picture-perfect houses feels like a haunting reminder of what can happen in forgotten parts of the country where disturbing truths fester.

Early reactions will lead people to believe one thing about Longlegs which will inevitably lend itself to disappointment when audiences don't get what they expect. However, if you drown out the noise, you will appreciate the show Osgood Perkins has put on and commend him for the immense effort he has put into doing it.