'Longlegs' is the scariest film of the decade
Believe the 'Longlegs' hype
(Spoilers Ahead)
Longlegs is the latest from Osgood Perkins, and it’s insane. This film has quickly made it to my top 3 favourite films from this year, only just missing out on the top spot to Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers. Truthfully, I have no idea where to begin with this film. I have so many thoughts about not just the film itself, but the excellent marketing campaign from Neon. For weeks, I had been hearing mutals of mine, who had been lucky enough to see an early screening, singing this film’s praises. I try to remain cautious in these circumstances, as I usually end up disappointed, but I left the cinema anything but that. Longlegs has future classic written all over it.
Credit: Neon (2024)
What I find to be the greatest triumph of Longlegs is its originality. The film has very clear influences and will be compared to Demme’s classic Silence of the Lambs (1991) and Fincher’s Se7en (1995) and Zodiac (2007), but its ability to become its own thing in an already saturated genre is impressive. As scary as Longlegs is, I still struggle to categorise it as a straight horror in the same way I would Hereditary (2018) or The Conjuring (2013), two films which I also saw glimpses of when watching Longlegs. It’s more thriller if anything, but even then I struggle saying that, which becomes a testament to how well this film bends genre lines. The film also plays with religious horror, and I was surprised to see how far they leaned into it. This, unfortunately, was where the film lost a few people as for anybody not paying enough attention, religious horror was always at the centre of the film, not just thrown in at the end as some have criticised.
Going back to the trailer footage after watching the film, the devil is in almost every shot. This brings me to the fact that this film has some of the best use of mise-en-scene and foreshadowing that I have seen in a while. The attention to detail in this film is phenomenal. My favourite has to be the raggedy-ann doll in the background of a flashback which, after finishing the film, is an obvious callback to the story of Annabelle.
I am a firm believer that people don’t give The Conjuring enough credit for its influence on horror, and I think it was a very clear influence for this part of the story of Longlegs. If anybody reading is unfamiliar with the story of Annabelle, she is the doll in the original Conjuring film, which they then made three spin-off films about the doll. The films are, allegedly, based on the true story of paranormal experts Ed and Lorraine Warren, who investigated the story of Annabelle. The story goes that a nurse was gifted a raggedy Ann doll (Annabelle), which turned out to be possessed by an evil spirit. To go back to Longlegs, we find out that Longlegs has been committing these crimes by making life-like doll versions of the daughter of a family and having a nurse (who is revealed to be Lee’s mother) gift these dolls to the daughter on her birthday. These dolls are demonically possessed and then coerce the fathers of the families to kill the family and then themselves.
Credit: Neon (2024)
To go back to the first Conjuring film, one of the most haunting frames in the film is of the demonic spirit Bathsheba sitting in a rocking chair with Annabelle in her knee. We see Annabelle’s head turn showing us that Bathsheba has taken control of the doll in that moment. We see this take place through a doorframe and there is a visual reference to this scene in Longlegs. Again, through a doorframe we see Longlegs similarly holding one of his dolls, foreshadowing the similar plot elements between the two films. The raggedy Ann doll we see in the flashback of Lee and her mother in the house almost shows us that the call is coming from inside the house, as a source of inspiration for both the film and for Longlegs. To further support my point, Lee’s ninth birthday was in 1974 dating these flashbacks to the 70s, the same time that the first Conjuring movie was set, and the “real life” events the film was based on took place.
Another horror movie I want to compare Longlegs to is Ari Aster’s Hereditary, not by plot but by how masterful the camerawork and editing are in building tension. One thing I adore about both of these films is how both are unafraid to cut shots short. There is a shot early on in Longlegs where we can see Lee in her house, sitting at her desk waiting by her phone. She is positioned to the left of the screen, leaving 2/3rds of the screen with negative space. The shot holds for a while, and it’s nailbiting, despite being so early on. Another testament to how great this film is at getting under your skin. It’s not “in your face scary”, it’s a different type of fear that I haven’t experienced in a while. I had no idea if somebody was going to pop out of the corner, no idea what was going to happen, but the camera just stayed fixed. This reminded me of an early scene in Hereditary, where Annie and the audience can see a silhouette of her recently deceased mother. The camera stays and lingers. There are no jumpscares, the film just moves. Any run-of-the-mill horror movie would’ve had something jump, in this situation, but not Hereditary. This subversion is what sets these films apart from the rest because they’re excellent at building tension and are both genuinely frightening.
Credit: Neon (2024)
As I said earlier in my article, Longlegs, as terrifying as it may be, is not necessarily a horror. My favourite part about this might be its detective-triller narrative. It feels like if David Fincher’s films leant into horror, which is where its comparisons to Se7en come in. Whilst Se7en is not a horror movie in the way that Longlegs is, it undoubtedly has horrifying sequences. But Se7en never got under my skin like Longlegs did. Longlegs is also drawing comparisons to one of the greatest films of all time, The Silence of the Lambs, which I admittedly see. Only time can tell what kind of legacy Longlegs may leave, but I truly believe that it could be this generation’s Silence of the Lambs.
You can’t talk about Silence of the Lambs without talking about its performances, which I think is the same case for Longlegs. Nicholas Cage gives his best performance yet as the titular character, but the film is asking you to fully lean into it for it to work. In the words of Jordan Peele, “The only difference between a horror movie and a comedy is the music”, which could be why audiences are coming out of Longlegs feeling like Cage’s performance was comical and not terrifying, as most of the movie had very minimal music. This feels like the role that Cage has been waiting for, he was the standout and I hope we talk about it for years to come.
The hair and makeup department deserves so much more credit than I’m seeing them get. The look of the Longlegs character is so perfect and works especially well in the opening sequence. Only being able to see the bottom of his face and then having a blink-and-you-miss-it full-face reveal is phenomenal and horrifying.
Credit: Neon (2024)
I’m so grateful that we’re seeing original, and great, horror movies in cinemas. This was one of those viewing experiences that I’m going to look back on and cherish for a very long time. I can see myself in 20 years being able to say to people that I saw Longlegs opening night in a packed cinema and I think we’re going to look back on this not just as a horror staple, but as a classic of 2020’s cinema.
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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