Movie Review: LONGLEGS (2024)

As I walked out of the theater, I breathed a sigh of relief, not that I was out of the dark, demented world of LONGLEGS but that the movie actually lived up to its hype. That's a rare thing these days when movies get trashed, bashed, or praised to high heaven on Rotten Tomatoes and Twitter, making it nearly impossible to go to the cinema without expectations. And however much I avoided the marketing campaign for LONGLEGS (it was everywhere!), I could not help but enter with high hopes.

Thankfully, this Oz Perkins-helmed movie delivers. It's another rare thing these days: a well-crafted motion picture with purpose. So often these days I finish movies asking, "Why the hell was that made?" I know exactly why LONGLEGS was made. It's creepy as hell! It is literally so creepy that it feels evil; it feels like the film itself is possessed by the devil. Somehow Perkins and his team in front of and behind the camera capture and sustain an incredible, terrible tone that lingers with the viewer long after the viewing is complete. It may not be brilliant, I wouldn't call it a masterpiece, but LONGLEGS is perfectly whole. It's a complete vision.

To talk about its parts is more challenging. The performances are all in tune, a dark melody that might take time to get in rhythm with. It took me about twenty minutes to lose myself in the picture. Once there, I was absorbed in the hypnotic, disturbing ride until those final, frightening five seconds with Cage. His crazy antics fit this film maybe more than they ever have. Again, he's in tune with this devilish song, his screaming and scene stealing just part of the nightmare on screen. It is one of the actor's best performances in a career of risk taking. All involved in this film took a risk because if one note was off the picture wouldn't work and it does.

LONGLEGS is something we don't get often these days. Cinema that does exactly what it intends to do. And in this case, it intends to haunt us.

Watched at Yakima 10 in Yakima, WA.

This movie review was also published on my letterboxd account and will be published on my Travis Mills filmmaker Facebook page