Osgood Perkins makes horror movies. Maybe that’s inevitable, considering that his father was Norman Bates himself, Anthony Perkins. Having seen Osgood’s previous movies — The Blackcoat’s Daughter, the superbly titled I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, and the superbly designed Gretel & Hansel — I’ve been impressed with his command of atmosphere and less impressed with his storytelling. I’m happy to say that the latter improves markedly in his latest film, Longlegs, with its fable-like evocation of childhood trauma that echoes through the decades.
Despite Perkins’ heritage, the plot of this film has more to do with The Silence of the Lambs and The X-Files than Psycho. Set during the early 1990s, the movie concerns Lee Harker (Maika Monroe), a young and tightly wound FBI special agent who’s put on a cold case in Oregon involving a dozen families wiped out by murder-suicides committed by the father, stretching back 30 years. The only thing connecting them is the daughters all having birthdays on the same day, and ciphered letters left at the scenes that are signed “Longlegs.” After she starts tracking the killer, Lee spots an intruder outside her cabin, and when she goes back into the house after a fruitless search, a coded letter from Longlegs is waiting on her desk.
Perkins’ command of atmosphere remains in evidence here, as he frequently frames people with too much space above their head to create an air of unease or smooshes the camera up in his actors’ faces, as when Lee interviews a mental patient (Kiernan Shipka) who was the sole survivor of one of Longlegs’ second-hand killing sprees. He has an eye for a striking visual, as in a flashback in 4:3 aspect ratio with a mother’s hand reaching up into the frame to guard against her husband (Jason Day) attacking her with an ax. The sound design is terrific, as Lee’s attention is often caught by distant whooshing or hissing sounds. The production designers even manage to make that hoary cliché of horror movies, creepy dolls, look newly scary. Nicolas Cage turns up as Longlegs, and I have to applaud the technicians who applied the stringy white hair and deathly pale prosthetics to his face, because it’s not easy making Nicolas Cage look like anybody except Nicolas Cage.
The acting also contributes to the creepiness here, with Monroe anchoring the proceedings as an obsessive shadowed by a strained relationship with her mother (Alicia Witt), a hoarder and a Christian zealot. Speaking of which, Witt manages to create a godly character who knows she’s doing the devil’s work, and who might just be scarier than Longlegs — pretty good for a pop singer whose acting resumé is mostly filled with Hallmark Christmas movies. If casting Cage as a serial killer seems on the nose, you should know that he makes a terrifying impression from an early scene, when he shambles through an otherwise empty grocery store during the day and starts to play peek-a-boo with the cashier.
I probably need another viewing or two to figure out whether the movie’s Satanic story (which circles back into Lee’s own family history) hangs together as well as it should. Even if it doesn’t, you’ll remember the dread that permeates this story and makes you sweat even through a Pacific Northwest winter. That comes down to the craftsmanship that Osgood Perkins brings behind the camera and the new take he finds on religious horror that wonders whether God or Satan are just the names that people give to their lust for blood and control.
Longlegs
Starring Maika Monroe and Nicolas Cage. Written and directed by Osgood Perkins. Rated R.
