Oz Perkins, the director is big on first impressions. And if Longlegs is intent on something, it is on impressing the audience. It is always grey in this film’s world, never raining but always wet and cloudy. Its people live in barely lit homes, which are all doors, angular lights and deep shadows. That goes for its main person too, FBI agent Lee Harker (Monroe), who wears a wan look, sharpened by cheekbones and barely parted thin lips.
There is clearly a dark cloud hanging over Lee, and it requires no FBI to determine that she is probably not the best of hires for a job requiring one to go after murderous, demented killers. But now that she has been hired, the Agency determines she won’t just do, she will do better as she has at least some “psychic” powers, though they are somewhat squeamish about using that word for it.
That is where the extent of the squeamishness goes, unfortunately. For, what we have is a full-blown mad serial killer versus greenhorn FBI Agent vibe going, that has none of the glowing talent or the cold menace of Silence of the Lambs. Rather, it has a Cage labouring under a Joker-like get-up, a silly prosthetic nose, and some Devil mumbo jumbo portions, who is neither funny nor scary or anything at all. If his Longlegs alter-ego has any long legs, we certainly aren’t shown any.
For 20-plus years, the best the FBI has to offer have been trying to decipher the letters Longlegs has been leaving behind at the homes where families have been found mysteriously slaughtered. What links them is that the father did it, using some weapon at home, then killed himself, and that one of the children was a daughter with a birthday coming up on the 14th of that month.
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There is never an explanation for why, but sure enough Lee cracks the puzzle just that tiny bit open for this film to go rushing in right through it. There is a connection between Lee and Longlegs which has been clear from the start.
If neither inspires, what does have you wondering are the strange, stilted conversations Lee has with her mother on the phone. The mother (Witt) picking up the phone just a little too late, framing her answers with pauses just a little too long, mentioning Lee’s birthday just a little too often, and Lee sounding just a little too disturbed after every such conversation.
Oz Perkins, also the screenwriter, happens to be the son of Anthony Perkins, he of Psycho fame. And this film, even as it hints at the ties that bind families in love and other things, never leans on it enough to make this film more than it gets to be.
What it has in plenty, curiously, is a portrait of President Bill Clinton smiling benignly in almost every shot of the FBI office as the agents discuss Satan and other devilry. Now, that’s a mystery which beguiles.
Longlegs movie director: Oz Perkins
Longlegs movie cast: Maika Monroe, Nicolas Cage, Blair Underwood, Alicia Witt
Longlegs movie rating: 1.5 stars
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