After the noticed Mandy (2018), Prisoners of The Ghostland (2021) and Dream Scenario (2023), the black swan from Hollywood no longer spoils fans of genre films. Nicolas Cage returns in a custom-made role where he embodies, with maestria, a deranged serial killer. Lee Harker, new FBI recruit played by actress Maïka Monroe works tirelessly to resolve the investigation and prevent him from taking the lives of other families. An implacable face-to-face that has already conquered the American public.
With knives drawn
Opening Longlegs plays the inventiveness card with a 4:3 frame with rounded edges to better transcribe a certain idea of an era, like a childhood window. As a distant remnant of a nightmare of youth remained engraved in our memories. It is in this snowy environment that Longlegs announces the beginning of the game its icy atmosphere. A little girl, intrigued by the arrival of an unexpected visitor, takes a look at a vehicle parked in front of the house of this pavilion suburbs. Like the jump scares of Slender Man, Longlegs appears at the height of a child, first the body and then the bust, almost petrified like Jack Nicholson in the labyrinth of The Shining. A strident music resonates, the image svanuits... and our retinal memory will keep the fleeting memory of a Nicolas Cage That'll make you want much of the movie.
Unrecognizable, blah, lips swollen to excess, the customary actor of transformist roles offers us a new declination of the figure of the croquemitaine. His face almost truncated by years of Botox recalls the outburst of the character of the mother-in-law in Amelias Children but limiting its appearances to the strict minimum. It is still difficult to imagine the man behind this disfigured face, caricature of an old bourgeois woman from Palm Beach who would have abused lifts. Suddenly the edges of the image stretch slowly until you fill the entire canvas and switch to the FBI investigation. The message is clear. Horror is like a poison that spreads into the body and will leave us no escape.
In the filmOz PerkinsLee Harker has a gift of foresight that makes his analytical ability exceptional. And it's the main narrative engine. If the determinants of the case remain anecdotal, Longlegs puts everything on its atmosphere. As the corpses pile up and the riddle seems increasingly insoluble, the investigation makes the spectator increasingly confused about the nature of the threat. Ongoing Longlegs plays the funambules on this ridge line between supernatural and reality.
Silence of the Lambs
With his intrigue, Longlegs knows how to maintain its suspense by building an increasingly suffocating atmosphere. The composition of the planes is chiseled and the photograph elegant. History immediately recalls The Silence of the Swans and the work of Find on films Se7en and Zodiac. Maika Monroe, featured actressIt Follow-up and excellent Watcher (read our critical) also delivers magnetic performance. The one who is often chosen to embody silent characters makes his whole game rest on the intensity of the look, a king vehicle of emotion and contagious tension. Her talent is no longer to be demonstrated and we are now curious to see if she will be able to reproduce the success ofIt Follow-up for his unexpected sequel.
With an exemplary communication on social networks, Longlegs is part of these films that have managed to show almost nothing if it is a single sequence become viral. The teaser shared on the networks claims that when confronted LonglegsThe heart rate of the actress would have increased from 76 BPM to 170 BPM. Makes sense shooting anecdote, Oz Perkins, the director of the movie decided to keep Maïka Monroe and Nicolas Cage separated throughout the shooting. The actress would not have had any insight into the appearance of the film's antagonist before this late and already cult scene. Legend or reality?
The first time Maika Monroe saw Nicolas Cage as Longlegs, her heart rate hit 170 bpm.
— —(@LonglegsFilm) July 8, 2024
LONGLEGS opens in theaters Friday: https://t.co/3tgjmFAPLc pic.twitter.com/DaweYaDgxM
One thing is for sure, having chosen to play on the outside while weighing the appearances of the serial killer helps to strengthen the power of suggestion, the image of the old horror movies that knew how to trust the spectator and his demons. In the vein of the best horror movies in recent years, Longlegs shows if it was still necessary how inexhaustible the figure of the croquemitaine is. A deliciously icy film to support in the cinema.
Trailer of Longlegs
I've been waiting a lot for this film, especially after these super effective trailers... and this despite Perkins making it, (I'm not a big fan of his previous films). I've been quite disappointed, the film develops good ideas without ever really exploiting them, there may be too much material and finally we don't dig anything concrete. Nicolas Cage is great, as in a lot of his roles (there is a whole story about the creation of his character when writing the script), but this is not enough to fill huge gaps in this film.
Maika Monroe whom I love very much camps an investigator with tics « prisoners and Jake Gyllenhaal » Dredged by his FBI superior, absolute cliché. The investigation is solved in a few scenes, the end more than predictable... there is no connection with the Silence of the Swans in terms of impact, grain, atmosphere... Longlegs lacks dirt, risk-taking, perhaps less licked image. The good points of the film are finally to look for on the side of the representation of the devil and possession at the Amityville, some scenes with the doll really work well and the soundtrack is quite effective, (sound upside down...). But overall this film, in my opinion, will not remain in the annals of genre cinema.