As the son of the Anthony Perkins who played the iconic Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s classic Psycho, you could argue that writer and director Osgood Perkins has horror films in his DNA. His latest picture is serial killer thriller Longlegs which follows rookie FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) as she investigates a series of homicide-suicides where families are massacred in their homes and cryptic notes are left behind. Following the clues, she finds that she has a strange flair for clairvoyance and soon suspects that she might have an eerie personal connection to the man behind the murders.
A chilling pre-title sequence sets the sinister tone of the piece, providing a glimpse of snowy 70s backstory to set us up for the 90s police procedural narrative to follow. Perkins shoots through a cold, dark lens with a depressed sepia palette of browns and greys that drains the life and colour from the bleak Oregon landscape. In doing so, he crafts a disturbing atmosphere of lurking dread that is elevated by a score from the filmmaker’s brother, credited as his creative pseudonym of Zilgi. As the plot thickens and takes a turn towards the supernatural, the storytelling suffers as a result with some of the early promise squandered in a somewhat weak final act.
Maika Monroe established herself as a ‘scream queen’ a decade ago with appearances in genre hits It Follows and The Guest and furthered this reputation with her leading role in the underseen and underappreciated psychological thriller Watcher a couple of years ago. As agent Lee Harker, she delivers a quiet, more insular, performance that suits the style of the film perfectly. Oddly more comfortable in the pursuit of evil than in social situations, she is a compelling protagonist that can bring subtle shades of humour into what is ultimately a very morbid story. In contrast to the central turn and at odds with the rest of the film tonally, Nicolas Cage goes typically and frustratingly full throttle with an unnerving but almost cartoonishly wicked portrayal.
So often with horror cinema, a ‘less is more’ approach can be beneficial as the terrorising thoughts of what you can’t see can be way more impactful that what you can. With Nic Cage as your maniacal villain, you only really get ‘more’ and kitted out in chalky make-up and prosthetics, the well-earned suspense of Osgood Perkins’ otherwise excellent Longlegs is stripped away as soon as we get a proper look at him.
Cinema Perspective 