Be Not Afraid: The Slow Iniquity Of Oz Perkins’ ‘Longlegs’
Warning: the review below contains mild spoilers for Longlegs.
“You've got the teeth of the hydra upon you / You're dirty, sweet, and you're my girl”.
Lyrics from the 1970s rock band T. Rex tattoo the blood-red title card, a sinister stamp of foreboding upon the opening scene. A slick ‘66 Chevrolet in a snowy field. Blonde braids. Rural Oregon after Christmas. The gradual, reluctant zoom feels like the moment before the curtain ascends, something unimaginably insidious beyond our vision, just out of reach.
Longlegs has been widely anticipated for months following the January release of its first trailer, introducing a labyrinth of stark visuals intertwined with glimpses of the bewildering and uncanny. Indie production company NEON chose to promote the film online with a myriad of enticing teasers – from a sinister website with passwords to decode, and a number that played a recording from Longlegs himself to clips that displayed star Maika Monroe’s heartbeat skyrocketing to 170 beats per minute as she sees the killer for the first time. Despite its relentless promotion, it was nearly impossible to glean any details about the Longlegs narrative prior to its release, or even catch a glimpse of Nicolas Cage’s character who remained shrouded by a black censored box in social media adverts. Like the shadowy veil that adorns a dark figure with hellishly bright eyes in the trailer, Perkins obscures his story for as long as possible, perhaps even after you stumble out of the cinema onto a bustling high street.
The 2024 new release examines a series of family killings that occur entirely within the home, with the father almost ritualistically killing mother, daughter, and finally himself. Lingering is the only remnant of the killer, letters of Satanic code signed by the anonymous Longlegs. The centripetal nature of such violence could perhaps be symbolic of the destruction of the nuclear family: a process that infects from within, eventually collapsing in on itself like a black hole. In contrast, stoic Special Agent Lee Harker (played by scream queen Maika Monroe) has only a mother who pleads waveringly for her to say her prayers at night. Locating this void resonates with the veiling and unveiling that takes place in the narrative both literally and metaphorically; Harker being at once blank and curiously clairvoyant, the serial killer assumes a dark inversion of fatherhood that hits a little too close to home. The claustrophobia of Longlegs is only rendered more excruciating through its portrayal of 90s suburbia, with portraits of Bill Clinton littered throughout the sterile wood decor of FBI offices, a decade still reverberating with shocks from the Satanic Panic.
Perkins flicks between extra wide 2.35:1 and rounded 1.33:1 aspect ratios, the latter reminiscent of blurry film exposures and vintage camcorders, placing both character and watcher within the realm of nostalgia. However, this is the opposite of comforting. As soft peals from a child’s music box clink methodically, a wife is bludgeoned under a perfectly symmetrical crucifix, each carefully framed flashback pieced together like a photo album. Stretching maggot-filled corpses across the screen, the expansive aspect ratio that captures the present is particularly arresting with the eerie echo of buzzing flies. Ominous bungalows and feline lowrider cars slot into the ultra-wide shots with ease. This is where Longlegs triumphs: the strength of its visual language, and its ability to create an alphabet of fear. On an alternative poster sits the silhouette of one of the mothers, her face contorted into a mask of panic as she performs a grotesque parody of a caesarean section upon herself, something like a second birth. These images on stark-lettered posters and in bloody montages culminate to produce a grotesquely unmistakable signature. The granular details of the film invoke another form of unveiling; like the horned shadow of the devil that lingers in our peripheral vision in many a scene, we are ironically reminded that what we search for has always been hidden in plain sight.
From the very first image, it is impossible to think about a scene without recalling the mathematical precision of its symmetry. Lines and boundaries crisscross and slash the spacious screen, bridged by the central movement of an apprehensive Harker. As she moves quietly across the rigid structural borders of door frames, corridors, and wall panels, her form physically connects the two halves of each shot. Simultaneously, Harker is the meeting point for the warring forces at play within the narrative, the yin and the yang: she interlaces her past and her present, the mundane and the supernatural, the federal and the homicidal.
Some viewers have complained of boredom – a lack of brutalised bodies, and too few jumpscares. If you prefer the fast lane, Longlegs may not be entirely to your tastes. However, Perkins’ unhurried deliberation over each tense moment arguably only serves to heighten hallucinations of what is being obscured. By refusing to reveal the source of potent fear, an atavistic terror inches its way under your skin. Even after the credits roll the wrong way, towards the Man Downstairs, you can’t shake the feeling that something still lurks concealed from view; a force of biblical proportions.
Longlegs had its UK release on the 12th of July 2024.
Edited by Humaira Valera, Co-Film & TV Editor
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