Writer-director Osgood Perkins’ Longlegs has been hailed as the acme of eeriness by many critics. Having just seen the talked-about film, it feels like a classic instance of much ado about nothing.
Perkins, who is the son of Anthony Perkins from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, delivers the usual jumpscares in darkly-lit rooms with a peculiar penchant for an orange glow in the background. One could write a whole thesis on the consciously sultry lighting and the equally selfconscious desultory writing . But is it worth it to even go there?
The horror episodes seem to have been constructed with the sole purpose of seeming visually uncharted. Agreed, we have never seen a horror film which LOOKS so unique. Mexican cinematographer Andrés Arochi shoots the terror trove with flaboyant acuity.Every frame conveys a unique history. However beyond a point, this constant quest for innovative visuals becomes obsessive, reducing every frame to a challenge rather than a pursuit.
Visually the film is interesting. Emotionally it is sterile. The setting is Oregon in 1990(missed Rajneesh by a couple of years). The town is terrorized by a satanic killer who likes to be called Longlegs. That Mr Longlegs is played by Nicolas Cage is a stroke of genius, the ONLY stroke of genius in this bewildering brew of inchoate tensions.
Every time Cage appears on screen, he serves as a chilling reminder of what this film could have been: an epic exploration of the terror that lurks beneath.Rather than contributing to the spinetingling universe of the supernatural, Cage’s character with its eloquent makeup and bloodcurdling screams, serves as an autonomous world separate from what goes in the rest of the film.
The protagonist is a sullen young FBI agent Lee Harker(Maika Monroe). Her callow presence is explained early in the goings-on at a federal convention where we are told the older agents don’t want to search for the killer. Hence the young have been tasked with the assignment.
The explanation, like much else that transpires in this shallow thrust at the deepend, is supposed to be a chilling reminder of the danger everywhere. But the intention to get us involved in the diabolic outbreak never goes beyond tearless whispers that refer to a pattern in the killings: the father of any family with a nine-year-old daughter born on the 14th of the month murders his entire family apparently on the say-so of the ominous Mr Longlegs.
Shaitaan, anyone?
Right from the start Lee Harker’s senior colleague Carter(Blair Underwood)’s daughter declares she is going be be nine soon, and would Lee like to come to her party.
It seems the entire town is filled with little girls approaching their ninth birthday on the14th. This kind of lazy writing trying to pose as a something a lot more ominous than a mere play on numbers, is not a sign of what the film promises: great minds working towards a story that has never been told before.
Yes, there is a certain aura of untrodden tension in Longlegs. But that doesn’t qualify it as anything special. I found the work anxious to impress with its trigger-happy plotting. But performance anxiety kills any semblance of uniqueness in the proceedings. Nicolas Cage is impressive. All the rest just doesn’t get there.