‘Longlegs’ Review: A Chilling Thriller That Sinks Into Horror Clichés

A chilling, half-forgotten encounter from childhood looms over “Longlegs,” the stylishly scored 1990s horror film by Osgood Perkins. movie about a young FBI agent (Maika Monroe) whose past seems to hold the key to a decades-long string of suburban serial killers.

In the opening flashback scene of “Longlegs,” a young girl emerges from her house to encounter a stranger in her snowy yard. We never see more than the lower half of his face, but the sense of dread is overwhelming. The image, accompanied by a scream, cuts off before “Longlegs” really gets going.

Twenty-five years later, that girl (Lee Harker, played by Monroe) is now an adult and involved in the investigation. She’s incredibly adept at decoding the serial killer’s choreographed targets, but her psychological acumen has a blind spot. In Osgood’s gripping but banal horror film about an elusive scarecrow, the most confounding mystery is the fuzzy, fractured nature of childhood memory.

“Longlegs,” which hits theaters Thursday, arrives on its own wave of mystery thanks to a long and enigmatic marketing campaign. Is the buzz justified? That may depend on your tolerance for a very serious procedural that is extremely adept at building an eerie slow burn but nonetheless leads to an accumulation of horror tropes: Satanic cults, creepy dolls and an outlandish story Nicolas Cage.

It’s thanks to the hauntingly haunting first half of Longlegs and Monroe that the film’s third act disappoints. After this prologue, presented in a square format with rounded edges, as if viewed through an overhead projector, the screen widens. Harker, a laconic and solitary detective, is part of a large team charged with tracking down the killer responsible for the deaths of 10 families over a period of 30 years. Sent to knock on doors, she looks up at a second-story window and knows immediately. “That’s the one,” she tells a partner (Dakota Daulby) whose lack of trust in her intuition quickly proves regrettable.

Harker is brought in for a psychological evaluation that demonstrates her uncanny clairvoyance. Agent Carter (Blair Underwood) gives her all the evidence that has been accumulated, which points to the same killer (each murder scene has a coded letter signed by Longlegs) but, at the time, shows no intruders in the homes of the murdered victims. Carter remembers Charles Manson. “Manson had accomplices,” Harker reminds him. Another disturbing fact: all the victims have daughters whose birthday is on the 14th of the month, a trait Harker naturally shares.

Families also figure prominently in the narrative. Harker occasionally visits his closeted mother (Alicia Witt), and their brief interactions suggest an awareness of the world’s cruelty. Once on the phone, Harker tells her she’s been busy with “work stuff.”

“Is it disgusting?” the mother asks. “Yeah,” she replies.

Scenes of terror ensue as they track the killer through rural Oregon. They frequent the usual haunts: an old crime scene, a locked barn, an old witness in a mental hospital. Longlegs (Cage) also lurks and leaves a letter for Harker. He is first seen fleetingly. A pale, discolored figure with long white hair, he looks increasingly clownish the closer you get. If Manson was a ’60s man, Longlegs, with his Bob Dylan Rolling Thunder White Face Reviewseems to be more of a 70s product. T.Rex opens and closes the movie and Lou Reed’s “Transformer” album cover is above his mirror.

Perkins (“Gretel & Hansel”) is the director son of Anthony Perkins, who played one of the most disturbing characters in film in Norman Bates’ “Psycho.” The roots of “Longlegs,” which Perkins also wrote, have personal ties to the director, he said, about his own upbringing and his father’s complicated personal life. But something deeper is struggling to penetrate “Longlegs.” Its sense of horror seems to come mostly from other films. “Se7en” and “The Silence of the Lambs” are obvious references. Longlegs ultimately seems more like a standard bogeyman and a vessel for Cage to the big screen.

Regardless, this is Monroe’s film. Her compelling screen presence in films like “It Follows” and “Observer” Which has earned her the title of “Scream Queen” par excellence. But she’s much more than a one-genre talent. Time and again in “Longlegs,” Harker, played by Monroe, is confronted with a particularly disturbing scenario and goes right into it. It’s not that she’s not nervous; her heavy breathing is part of Eugenio Battaglia’s clever sound design. Monroe, steely and strong, cuts like a knife through this film of almost cartoonish severity. Bad stuff? Yeah.

“Longlegs,” released by Neon, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for bloody violence, disturbing images and strong language. Running time: 101 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.