Chauncey K. Robinson

Longlegs had great potential but failed to spark anything new or exciting in its story. A few haunting performances can’t hide that the film put much of its creative energy into aesthetics and atmosphere, leaving little left over to save its predictable and surprisingly empty tale. It feels like a remix of better films we’ve seen before, with little to no lasting payoff in the end. 

Written and directed by Osgood Perkins, Longlegs takes place in the 1990s and tells the story of a young female FBI agent named Lee Harker, who seems to have a special psychic talent for sensing killers and dark forces. She is assigned to a case involving a series of murder-suicides in Oregon. Each case involves a father killing his family and himself, leaving behind a letter with Satanic coding signed “Longlegs.” From there, viewers are taken on a journey of Lee trying to figure out who the mysterious Longlegs is and their connection to the murders. There are some tense moments and a few jump scares, but they happen few and far between and do little to justify the story’s slow pace. The twists are almost too obvious, to the point where this critic is surprised that they were that easy to predict instead of being fake-outs. 

What Longlegs initially had going for it was its marketing. Although the movie features megastar Nicolas Cage, the initial word of mouth around the film was to go into it blindly. The focus isn’t on Cage but the mystery of the movie. It was touted as one of those “the less you know going in, the better it is” sort of film. And just like the overhyped Barbarian (2022) that had that same kind of word-of-mouth marketing, it is clear that going into it without any idea of what it is about works because your expectations will initially be low. 

However, the negative flip-side of this is when the people who saw it initially tell more people to watch it—and add how wonderful they thought it was—that the new batch of people go in with higher expectations. This is where the downfall begins. The expectations are higher, and what is ultimately a mid-tier film feels even more hollow because the movie was made to seem as though it would be something more profound and more terrifying than that. 

Longlegs is not a bad film; it just isn’t a great one, either. Characters like Lee and Longlegs are not new. It has a murder case with a killer whose presence looms over the film even when they aren’t on screen, which feels reminiscent of The Silence of the Lambs and Se7en. Yet, what those films conveyed in layered storytelling is absent in Longlegs. Things happen, and secrets are revealed, but nothing feels genuinely earned. 

Blair Underwood, as Agent William J. Carter, is one of the main standouts in the film. Underwood feels natural as the pragmatic yet supportive skeptic to Maika Monroe’s Lee. The two have an easy chemistry that makes the moments when they discuss the cases feel grounded. 

Cage gives a memorable performance, but there are moments when the character gets away from him to the point where it slips into parody. Yet, when that is reeled in, it is a haunting portrayal. 

Monroe, as the leading lady, does what she can with a character that feels half-baked. Lee has been through some things in her life. Still, the character lacks any real agency, so many of her actions feel frustrating and confusing from a storytelling standpoint, particularly towards the end. 

Longlegs has some moments that will stick with you after the credits roll, and the aesthetic has a haunting 90s retro grunge that immerses you in the film’s world. Unfortunately, once there, there’s not much to it aside from a surface-level and barely explained Satanic plot and a bit of blood and gore along the way.