I was planning to cover something political and trashy in the wake of… you know, but that didn’t manifest in time. But you know what I did watch last week? Longlegs, the new horror film from Mr. Osgood Perkins–son of Mr. Anthony Perkins of Psycho fame–and Mr. Nic Cage. And it was pretty good! So let’s talk about that and ignore our impending doom. Doom, doom, dooooooom…
Set sometime in the 90’s–I’m sure they probably gave a year but we just go by the picture of Bill Clinton on the wall–the movie follows FBI Agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe from It Follows) who may be psychic. Or autistic in a way that helps her solve cases by noticing patterns. Yeah, probably that last one. She’s assigned the case of a ritual killer called Longlegs who targets young girls whose birthday is on the 14th of a given month. Huh, I wonder when Harker’s birthday is… I’m sure that won’t come up. Turns out Longlegs (Cage) may or may not be supernatural, but he definitely worships the devil. Like, I thought that was just a generic assumption given the Satanic Panic of the 80’s and 90’s, but no, he worships Satan. And hoo boy does he look like a goddamned mess. You barely recognize Cage, but he gives 110% to his portrayal of a very, very, very disturbed killer. And the rest… spoilers, sweetie. Sure, I could go into the ending, but my hope is by avoiding it I encourage you to go watch the movie. It’s not perfect, but I found it really engaging. Definitely one I plan on watching again now that I know all the twists. Maybe I’ll keep track of how many times I see the Devil!
But I do feel like I should talk about some other elements of the movie. Let’s see… There’s a cameo by Kiernan Shipka, who was in one of Perkins’ previous movies, The Blackcoat’s Daughter, a movie about also about someone obsessed with the Devil. I also give Longlegs a 4 on the Nic Cage Freakout Meter. I feel like the tone overall–and the judicious limiting of how much Cage is in the film–is closer to a 3, but he’s got some great moments that really drive home how twisted his character is. Anything else is pretty spoiler heavy, so we’ll leave it at that. Check it out! Chwineka approved!
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