Film review: ‘LONG LEGS’ by Nick Gardener from ‘Built For Speed’
The thriller Long Legs has been touted as one of the scariest films of recent times and even a modern horror classic. It’s neither of these things and will probably wind up as one of the year’s most overrated movies but that shouldn’t dissuade people from seeing it as this is still an impressively stylish and creepy film.
This movie owes an obvious debt to grim 90’s thrillers like Seven and Silence and the Lambs and often feels like an efficient but cut-price fan boy homage to those films. Also, with its precise yet inventive and moody cinematography, this film occasionally evokes Scandi noir.
Like Seven and Lambs, Long Legs centres on a self-doubting young cop battling a seemingly unstoppable serial killer. Maika Monroe stars here as FBI agent Lee Harker who is investigating a series of mass murders at which a ‘Zodiac killer’-like coded message signed ‘Long Legs’ is always left. The killings stir what seem to be repressed memories of a terrifying incident from her childhood involving a crazed character played by none other than Nic Cage.
With Long Legs, writer/ director Osgood Perkins (son of Anthony Perkins) has a decent if not entirely successful crack at pulling together an ambitious collection of elements: crime thriller, police procedural, psychological drama and supernatural horror. Perkins gives the film a sense of stillness with a minimum of ambient sound, a locked down camera filming only one or two people in most scenes and Lee often frozen in thought. This, at times, creates tension and the sense of Lee being isolated but occasionally makes the film feel too static and suggests budget limitations.
In the early part of the film, Perkins successfully builds a sense of dread through shots in which the room seems to imprison Lee, strange fragments of noise emanate from nowhere and shadowy figures lurk in night. There are some effective pop out scares and a few grotesque moments but the film relies more on the feeling of threat than violence or gore. The promise of those early scenes doesn’t quite play out into a satisfying fright fest, though, as the film starts to spin its wheels and relies on excessive exposition to unfurl its weird premise.
Maika Monroe does a reasonably convincing job as a person labouring under the weight of childhood trauma but Lee is not a particularly engaging character and critically, not someone about whom we desperately care. Also, Monroe has the unenviable task of trying to compete with our memories of Jodie Foster’s iconic Clarice Starling from Silence of the Lambs and she suffers in comparison. As Mr Legs, Cage is shown sparingly but leaves a lasting impression. With his long, bedraggled hair, pale complexion, prosthetically altered face and spooky high-pitched voice, he’s a disquieting figure. It also wouldn’t be a Cage film if he didn’t have the opportunity for a few patented maniacal outbursts. Alicia Witt also does a decent turn as Lee’s mother who seems to be a relative of the mum from Carrie.
Ultimately, though, this film is more an exercise in style over substance. Each scene is carefully crafted but it doesn’t seem to be offering too much beyond its admittedly impressive surface.
Nick’s rating: ***
Genre: Drama/ Horror/ Thriller/ Mystery.
Classification: MA15+.
Director(s): Osgood Perkins.
Release date: 18th July 2024.
Running time: 101 mins.
Reviewer: Nick Gardener can be heard on “Built For Speed” every Friday night from 8-10pm on 88.3 Southern FM.