FILM OF THE WEEK: Longlegs

The world would be a much duller place without the committed weirdness of Nicholas Cage. He’s played vampires, ghosts, romantic leads, psychopaths, himself, John Travolta – it’s been a sometimes impressive, sometimes disastrous, ever-fascinating ride.

In Longlegs, we get another iteration of Cage eccentricity as he plays the eponymous creep in Osgood Perkin’s latest horror. Perkins' films I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House and The Blackcoats Daughter impressed American horror fans with their ominous tone and skill for harnessing tension and insinuation, but never made it across the pond.

The opening of Longlegs shows the director's intent and ability, as he creates a hyper stylised eeriness, taking familiar tropes of classic American horror and heightening them. A flashback, framed in a square aspect ratio mimicking a home movie, captures an isolated family home surrounded by snow and woodlands. A young girl emerges from the house and watches a station wagon pull into the driveway. Wide shots capture how small she looks against the unnerving landscape, which provides endless tress and rocks that we can’t see behind, before a quick cut to her POV shows a figure suddenly appearing in front of her. The child’s eye level only brings her to this person’s stomach, as we hear an eerie sing-song voice and a slashing strings soundscape.

Then comes the jump scare flash of a pale long-haired figure – children, meet Longlegs, ready to haunt your dreams.

Osgood’s understanding of space, sound and tension serves him well in the first act of the film, which flashes forward to the '90s, where young FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe, nervy and excellent) seems to have a near psychic ability to detect killers. These powers aren't omnipresent or under her control, and emerge as hunches to explore quiet suburban houses that hold pitch-black secrets. Her reputation captures the attention of senior Agent Carter (Blair Underwood), who brings her onto an ongoing case; a series of family murders where fathers suddenly turn on their spouse and children, slaying all before killing themselves. In each case, the daughters share the same birthday, with someone also leaving a cryptic coded note, indecipherable except for the signature, ‘Longlegs.’

Harker is brought in to investigate the vicious crimes, all while trying to refrain from getting distracted by the fact that she shares the same birthday as the young victims.

The set-up of a young female FBI agent tracking a serial killer obviously recalls The Silence Of The Lambs. Monroe’s performance feels influenced by Jodi Foster, capturing a similar wide-eyed fear and nervy, tight-lipped attempt to maintain control in the face of horrific crime scenes. Harker’s workaholic tendencies, awkward social demeanour and monotone phone conversations with an anxious, religious mother (Alicia Witt) also create an image of stunted development; a young girl in the body of a professional killer-catcher. Her connection to the young girls in the case is made clear over time, as the creepy contours of Longlegs’ machinations begin to reveal themselves.

The contours of Osgood’s influences also reveal themselves, with the director's vision often found wanting in comparison to the films he pays homage to. He seemingly hasn’t learned from criticism of his predecessors. While Jonathan Demme has apologised for the transphobic elements of The Silence Of The Lambs, Osgood’s rotted glam-rock queer-coding of Longlegs plays into a tired and harmful trope of gender nonconformity and evil. The director's framing and soundscape impress throughout, but there’s a tonal mismatch between the campy qualities of Cage’s villain, the dramatic Zodiac-style procedural plot, and 80s influences that introduce another horror subgenre. Reveals come too early and exposition clunkily in a gene where the dark unknown festers more effectively than the illuminated and explained.

The frustration with Osgood’s work arises from the obvious skill, style and potential displayed onscreen. Longlegs often comes close to greatness - toying with ideas of religion and faith, generational trauma, PTSD and the connection between victims and perpetrators, there are multiple intriguing themes vying for exploration – but Osgood’s love for a gimmick cuts these before they can fully take root in the dark corners of our imagination.