Longlegs (2024)

Jul 23

The longer the legs, the harder they fall.

Presentation:

This film had the potential to be the best horror film of 2024. Perkins demonstrates his intuition and innovation with the genre through imaginative and intelligent use of Arri signature ultra wide lenses, highlighting paranoia horror. It’s also very beautifully shot with modern cinematography and lighting, though some may find it bland and dim. As a cinematography I was fascinated by the use of squarer formats for memories, flashbacks and visions, which are done differently like a subliminal Rorschach test. You would think that changing aspect ratio throughout a film would be distracting, but it enhances the experience here. By being so wide, the audience is always checking the outside of the frame for potential threats, and the suspense for danger in the shadows is half the atmosphere. The beginning of the film is executed unbelievably creepy. The cast is a mixed bag - Nicholas Cage does a fine job, but Maika Monroe I’m on the fence about. You probably didn’t realize she’s the protagonist in It Follows because she had a forgettable face back then but stands out here. Her performance is frustratingly pensive but also awesomely foreboding at the same time with an eerie quietness that is super cool. I love how her wardrobe takes from Makima from Chainsaw Man blending with Fincheresque detective cinematography. Even if it’s spiritually copying from Mindhunter, Se7en and Zodiac, it felt very fresh to me. Unfortunately, the story falls apart completely with plot holes, inconsistencies and turns for the sake of the director’s meaningless vision.

Story:

There are so many things wrong with this film that unravel as early as the start of part 2. So we need to establish what happened and what the director intended, which has been revealed in interviews. Special Agent Lee Harker is assigned to a mission and possesses some psychic abilities to stay alive after the first encounter. First of all this premise of a psychic FBI agent is so unbelievably cool and the film plays out almost like a videogame. It turns out that Longlegs has been working for the devil by building satanic dolls that can control the family to kill each other. Longlegs utilizes the help of Lee's mother, which you wonder how it is necessary. She only complies because he would have killed them all including Lee if she didn't. But what was he doing before he had assistance? How come he now needs her as a nun to send dolls? Why not just put it on their doorstep with a message, which is likely what he was doing before? And then he's somehow able to teleport inside Harker's home, which he shouldnt really need to do? It's because the director states that he wanted to comment on how it's the hosts fault for accept strange gifts into the home like receiving missionaries door to door. Perkins claims he's not anti religion by the way. Longlegs then lives under their home, which is unbelievable and unnecessary and only adds disbelief rather than creepiness. You're telling me Harker grows up never wondering what's downstairs or seeing him move in or out? How is this plausible in any way to protect your daughter, Ms. Harker? So ignoring that he leaves clues and gives himself up for no reason other than borrow from Se7en and Zodiac according to Perkins, and then after a creepy confrontation he kills himself also for no apparent reason. At this time, camera girl kills herself, for no connecting reason, and the mother continues on a killing rampage, for no connecting reason. She seems relieved when finding out Longlegs is dead and so she can finally destroy Harker's doll. She then continues Longleg's killing spree, I guess you can assume she is possessed despite no connecting reasoning, but states that she needs to kill to keep protecting her from Satan. Then why does she laugh it off that prayers are useless to protect oneself from the devil? Well apparently because according to the director Perkin's thought protective prayers are an absurd premise that he wanted to include despite being contradictory to the story. In the final confrontation, Harker's firearm changes from a glock to a revolver for the sake of not having enough ammo to destroy the doll for a dramatic end. Even though she only fired 3 shots and a revolver has 6 shots. It's just laughable how little attention to detail and story cohesion is made.

Analysis:

You can just read an interview between director Perkins to see what his intentions are for this film. He basically wanted to make an homage to Fincher films, but with no regard for the story that he took pieces and put together from discarded projects. There are some really cool detective aspects of this film, but are ultimately meaningless when you realize that they serve no purpose. For example, Longleg's obsession with birthdays has no relevance other than it sounds spooky and appears to give some reason to the madness. But just like the dolls eye jump scare, as a horror it's more enjoyable to ignore all these holes despite the movie taking itself pretty seriously.

Conclusion:

Despite a livid analysis, I love this bad script just because of everything accomplished in the first part. The tone built up is superb and has a lot to offer for students of cinematography. This film had potential to be a 5, that’s how good the opening is, but by part 2 has one of the steepest falls of any film I’ve seen. It really crashes and burns and you will pity how great this film could have been if only they respected the story a little bit more. Even still, I emotionally love this film because of the visuals and tone, and now Maika Monroe as well!

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