‘Longlegs’: Intriguing but Flawed Satanic Horror

Longlegs has set itself up to be one of the biggest horror films of the year. Neon went above and beyond for the film’s ad campaign, leaving audiences with high expectations. As of now, the film sits at #2 in the box office, with raving critic reviews.

While the film is undoubtedly a stunning and inspired approach to the horror genre, it certainly has its pitfalls. Keep reading as we discuss where this anxiously anticipated film succeeds and where it stumbles.

Act I

The film has an absolutely gripping cold open that introduces us to our presumed villain. Cage’s first moment on-screen is nightmarish and heart-pounding, leaving you thrilled at the prospect of seeing more of whatever is going on here. Shot with a 4:3 aspect ratio, the film creates a claustrophobic nostalgia. It is cold, gritty and absolutely haunting with no real score behind it.

The sequence transitions quickly to a fun rock song over a title sequence reminiscent of horror classics like The Shining. At this point in the film, I was preparing for a grounded yet stylish take on the crime horror drama. The first-person perspective of the opening prepares the viewer for a disturbing mystery that they will be able to easily insert themselves into. As the film progresses, we slowly lose this quality.

The first act of the film follows Lee Harker, a newly recruited FBI agent. She is given a case of murder-suicides spanning decades. Each family was left with a coded letter, signed “Longlegs.” Despite the presence of these letters, no evidence of an outsider in the home is present—but the handwriting doesn’t belong to a victim. Lee begins to find similarities between each family: each had a nine-year-old daughter born on the 14th of the month, with the murder occurring six days before or after her birthday.

It’s an incredibly captivating set-up, centering around a unique female character. Lee is calculating and highly intelligent, making her performance sympathetic and rejecting genre tropes. Where she has the obvious opportunity to be a typical aggressively headstrong FBI agent, she plays the character in a far more interesting way. Lee is awkward, distant and somewhat strange. She is implied to be clairvoyant, and has a deadpan, cold way of interacting with others. This both serves to reinforce her ability to see answers and mysticism where others fail to and foreshadows her strange upbringing. 

This first section of the film is largely quiet and minimalist. We watch Lee examine the evidence before her as Longlegs looms in the shadows, delivering terrifying letters to her home without a trace. At this point in the film, we have ourselves a horror take on an investigative crime film; a mystery we’re itching to watch unravel. The minimal score and subdued performances can at times make the film feel a bit sleepy, but also serves to shock in moments of real tension. Unfortunately, these moments can be at times predictable, especially towards the back half of the film.

The setup implies that what’s to come may involve a satanic serial killer with some strange means of getting his victims to kill themselves and others. This setup paired with the complex details and coded letters opens the audience up to the possibility that we are about to see something akin to a film like Se7en. With a premise so perfectly designed to facilitate an exploration of human cruelty, it feels a bit disappointing to go in such a generic direction. 

Act II

For this next section, big spoiler warning as I will be discussing parts of the latter half of the film.

Lee and her supervisor discover a life size doll buried at one of Longlegs’ crime scenes, containing a metal ball. She discovers that she has a connection to the case after finding a photograph in her mother’s attic of Longlegs. After Longlegs is brought in, he reveals to Harker that her mother has the answers she seeks before gruesomely killing himself.

We discover that Lee met Longlegs as a child—this was the haunting opening of the film. Lee was supposed to die, but her mother agreed to be his accomplice to spare her life. The method of murder is through the dolls Longlegs crafts and imbues with the devil’s influence. Ruth would pose as a nun and offer the families a gift from the church. The doll’s influence would do the rest.

Overall, this ending feels a bit flat. Cage’s performance, despite strong inspirations, sometimes feels a bit too intense to take seriously. Each intense beat hits hard against the stark, eerily quiet backdrop of the film. However, the predictability of each major event makes it difficult to connect to the characters. In the end, the coldness of Lee’s performance makes it difficult to feel the weight of her mother’s true identity. I found myself simultaneously horrified by the film’s final event, and thinking, are we really doing the evil doll shtick?

Themes and Inspirations

Cage’s main inspiration for his performance was his experience with a schizophrenic mother. He says in an interview with EW that it was “[a] deeply personal performance” and describes the character as “[a] tragic entity… at the mercy of these voices that are talking to him.” Perkins encouraged both Cage and Witt to use personal experiences to influence their performances, creating something deeply personal. Alicia Witt was, according to Perkins, coming from “[a] really deep, emotional place of wanting to exorcise some things” in her performance of Ruth Harker.

In an interview with Inverse, Perkins explains that the inspiration for this resolution was the magical rituals and beliefs of ancient cultures. He was also looking at the case of Jonbenet Ramsay. Ramsay’s body was found feet from a recent birthday gift; a life size replica doll of herself. Perkins’ speaks about fascination with the devil and inclusion of religious themes throughout. In his interview with Inverse, he says, “There’s a power out there that’s probably working on you in a bad way… if you say ‘the devil’ it immediately includes every audience member.” He also notes the misappropriation of the devil and criticizes religious dogmatism. He states, “I don’t know that there have been many crusades that happened because of the devil. I don’t think anybody’s saying ‘Hail, Satan’ when they’re colonizing a land. They’re saying ‘Praise Jesus.'”

These ideas and references are truly thought provoking and lend credit to Perkins vision as a filmmaker. The religious guise Ruth puts on parallels the cruel deception that is often acted out by religious groups. The way that Longlegs and Ruth justify their cruelty is perhaps another parallel to religious thinking. Longlegs screams out in one scene, “Mommy! Daddy! Unmake me! Save me from the hell of living!” Ruth consistently comments on the cruelty of the world for the little things. The two seem to justify their violence as something they must do, in the name of the devil. As Perkins says, we are all capable of evil, and all have the devil within us. People are often able to justify their evil through their ideologies.

Conclusion

As it goes, while I feel this film is lacking, it is certainly a stylish and thoughtfully crafted horror film. It offers interesting performances, various interpretations and a fresh yet nostalgic visual style.

However, the satanic resolution doesn’t quite feel at home in the framework built in the first act. To draw the audience in with the appearance of a complex mystery and answer their questions with “Satan did it” feels disappointingly simplistic. But the themes and ideas surrounding this ending are thought-provoking and intriguing.

Ultimately, the ending still feels a bit flat and played out on the surface. If the psychological and investigative themes were more present throughout, perhaps it would stick the landing a bit more. I look forward to seeing more from Oz Perkins, as he is clearly full of fascinating inspirations and terrifying ideas.