2024 has been a fascinating year for horror movies. While insanely creative films like “I Saw the TV Glow” and fun, campy movies like “Abigail” came out— incredibly forgettable or seriously unwatchable movies like “Night Swim” also hit the theaters.
Horror is a mixed bag— there’s always a chance that you’ll find a boring, poorly written movie ridden with painfully bad CGI, or you could find a movie like “Longlegs.”
“Longlegs” is a horror/crime film following the story of Lee Harker: an allegedly telepathic FBI agent— played by Maika Moore— who is tasked with the case of a serial killer no one else has been able to find any clues on. The killer Longlegs, played by Nicholas Cage, never appears at the scene of his crimes, the only sign he was ever there being an encrypted letter signed with his name at the bottom of the note.
As the movie progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that the killer is connected to the occult— and also to our protagonist. As evidence that Longlegs knew Harker when she was a child becomes clear, religious imagery begins to bleed into the seams of the movie and the pacing accelerates. The movie’s twists and turns leave the audience just as disoriented and anxious as the characters they watch— something very few movies do successfully.
“Longlegs” is exactly what the horror genre is in desperate need of.
Knowing the company producing “Longlegs,” I went into the movie with pretty big expectations. NEON has released incredibly successful movies like “I, Tonya,” “Anatomy of a Fall,” and “Parasite”— and they’re no stranger to horror either: just this year they’ve released “Immaculate” with Sydney Sweeney and more recently “Cuckoo” with Hunter Schafer.
Though “Longlegs” doesn’t have the same level of star power as “Immaculate” or “Cuckoo”, it still holds up— even exceeds— the two former movies.
Recently the horror genre has struggled with following the same old tropes of the classics, especially when it comes to serial killer movies.
The majority of popular horror movies are slashers— “Friday the 13th”, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, “Scream”, or “Halloween.” Most movies on serial killers inside the horror genre rely on the shock of gore— the rush of seeing the blood splatter.
But not “Longlegs.”
“Longlegs” isn’t a slasher, and it doesn’t try to be.
Reviews complain that the movie was mis-marketed— that it’s not a serial killer movie or a scary one— but this misses the point of the movie.
“Longlegs” is a psychological horror, and many viewers were disappointed when it leaned more into the psychological aspect than horror. While watching I couldn’t help but feel dread throughout my whole watch.
The movie has a way of giving you a pit in your stomach that just doesn’t go away.
One of my favorite scenes in the movie shows this incredibly well. The scene starts by following our lead into her house— a secluded cabin in the woods. One of the first things that becomes clear in the scene is the lack of a music track over the large majority of its run, which makes it seem almost hard to breathe as you watch.
During an already off-putting phone call with Harker’s mother, the camera flips, revealing a figure standing in the woods outside her home. The camera switches between shots of empty rooms of Harker’s home leading to her front door, in quick, tight shots, leaving the impression that something— or someone— will appear the next time the camera flips. The slow, absolutely silent walk to the front door gives more than enough time to let the audience’s stomach drop.
When Harker goes to investigate the aggressive knocking and mysterious noises outside her home in the dark, I had to fight the urge to scream through the screen and tell her to go back inside and lock the door. The camera focuses on her face, but through the blurry background we can see the unfocused figure of a person inside of her house in the room she had just been sat in. As she returns inside, she finds the house empty, but a threatening letter was left on her desk.
The dread I felt watching the scene didn’t end until several minutes after it was already over, and even then, I was still nervous. The horror and anxiety of events in the movie haunt the following scenes, making it hard to ever feel like there’s truly a moment of calm (for both the characters and the audience).
That kind of nail-biting anxiety is what I think makes this movie thrive— and why it is so successful in being a “scary” movie.
Another large aspect of anxiety in the movie is Harker’s relationship with her mother Ruth, played by Alicia Witt. Through the first half of the movie, we never see her face, but her dialogue through phone calls is impressively unnerving and incredibly impactful. She is vital to the story of Harker’s life that is slowly built throughout the majority of the movie, before it all comes crashing down in the conclusion.
Ruth is the main executioner of frightening moments towards the end of the movie— the shock of her actions and the overwhelming religious imagery that she brings with her, supported by insanely eerie acting, creates a perfect mix of horror.
Dressed in a nun’s outfit to carry out her final scenes of the movie, Alicia Witts’ performance is what fulfills the final goal of the movie, and what really solidifies the impact of it all.
Many horror movies struggle to be memorably scary. The use of cheap tricks like jump scares, excessive gore, and sudden loud effects have become pretty standard— and while certain movies benefit from this, they struggle to truly scare the audience in an impactful way. Fun horror is something I can appreciate— not every movie needs to be impactful and serious—
For a movie trying to do what “Longlegs” does, it just wouldn’t work.
Horror has become an oversaturated market, and like many other genres, it’s harder and harder for movies to be creative, let alone unique.
“Longlegs” is a shining example of breaking out into your own niche and doing it exceedingly well.
