‘Longlegs’ Overview: A Dark Mystery That Descends Into Horror

A haunting, half-remembered experience of youth looms over “Longlegs,” Osgood Perkins’ stylishly composed nineteen-nineties horror story. Movies Some young FBI agent (Maika Monroe) whose life turns upside down storing the key to a decades-old serial killer suburban gang.

In the opening flashback scene of “Longlegs”, a gentle girl ventures out of her field to meet a stranger in her snow-covered garden. We never see more than half of his face, but the sense of panic is overwhelming. The picture cuts off, accompanied by a scream, before “Longlegs” can properly begin.

Twenty-five years later, the woman (Monroe’s Lee Harker) has now grown up and is drawn into the investigation. He is supernaturally accurate in interpreting the serial killer’s choreographed motives, although there is a playfulness to his mental shrewdness. In Osgood’s gripping and clichéd horror film about an elusive boogeyman, perhaps the most disturbing thriller is the bleak, fragmented nature of youthful memory.

“Longlegs,” which opens in theaters Thursday, is becoming a puzzle in itself thanks to a lengthy, mysterious ad campaign. Is the excitement justified? It may depend on your tolerance for a highly serious process that is exceptionally efficient at developing an ominous slow burn but results in a plethora of scary incidents: satanic prayers, creepy dolls and a grotesque. Nicolas Cage.

It’s a credit to the hauntingly mesmerizing first half of “Longlegs” – and to Monroe’s credit – that the film’s third half disappoints. After this prologue – presented in a boxy proportion with rounded edges, as if not hidden through an overhead projector – the cover widens. Harker, a small, lonely detective, is part of a massive operation to find the killer behind the deaths of 10 households over a 30-year process. Sent out to knock on doors, she looks up to a second-floor window and immediately knows. “It is what it is,” she tells her spouse (Dakota Dolby), whose tendency to lack religion proves temporarily regrettable.

Harker is submitted to a psychological analysis which reveals his strange foresight. Agent Carter (Blair Underwood) gives him all the collected evidence, which implies the same killer – a coded letter signed by Longlegs has been left at each murder scene – but the point of denying the intruder was inside the killers’ homes at the time. She comes. Carter is reminded of Charles Manson. “Manson had associates,” Harker reminds him. Additionally disturbing is that all of the victims have a daughter whose birthday falls on the 14th of the week, an asset Harker, naturally, shares.

The family is also famous in the story. Harker occasionally visits her close mother (Alicia Witt), and their brief conversations hint at her knowledge of the brutality of the area. Once on the telephone, Harker told her he was busy with “work stuff”.

“nasty stuff?” Mother asks. “Yes,” she replies.

Terrifying practice scenes while hunting a killer in rural Oregon. They share familiar locations: a worn-out crime scene, a locked barn, a worn-out supervisor in a psychiatric health facility. Longlegs (Cage) is also hanging around, and leaves a letter for Harker. We see him fleetingly in the beginning. He is a fair, weathered man, with long white hair, who looks more clownish as we get closer to him. If Manson were in the 60’s, Longlegs, with his bob dylan rolling thunder review white face, a product extra released in the 70s. The T.Rex opens and closes the film and the album cover of Lou Reed’s “Transformers” sits above its reflection.

Perkins (“Gretel & Hansel”) is the filmmaker son of Anthony Perkins, who famously played one of the most volatile characters in one of the most important movies of all time, Norman Bates in “Psycho.” The roots of “Longlegs”, which Perkins also wrote, are personal connections for the director, with Perkins saying his personal upbringing and his father’s complicated personal future. However one thing that “longlegs” struggle more to distinguish is. Its sense of horror returns primarily from smaller but still alternative films. “Se7en” and “The Silence of the Lambs” are sunlit touchstones. Longlegs ultimately seems like a storied boogeyman and big-screen ship for Cage.

After all, it is Monroe’s film. Her mesmerizing cover appearance in films like “It Follows” and “watchman” She has recently earned the name of famous “scream queen”. That’s more than just solo-style ability, though. Again and again in “Longlegs”, Monroe’s Harker is faced with a uniquely hopeless situation and walks right in. It’s not that he’s not afraid; His thick breathing is a part of the gentle pitch design via Eugenio Battaglia. Steely and strong, Monroe cuts through this virtually cartoonish horror film like a knife. nasty stuff? Yes.

“Longlegs,” a neon free, is rated R by the Movement Image Association for bloody violence, disturbing images and some language. Running time: 101 minutes. Two and 1/2 stars out of 4.