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<\/a><\/div>\nLonglegs<\/i> is the closest we\u2019ve come to an Alan Wake<\/i> movie adaption since the release of the original game. Osgood Perkins thakes the reigns of a serial-killer movie with Silence of the Lambs style origins and twists it into something more unsettling thanks to an unnerving central performance from Nicholas Cage as dollmaker turned serial killer Longlegs, who has a Manson-esque connection to the occult and the ability to alter memories. It\u2019s a sickeningly twisted start that gets deeper and deeper into the sinister, unexplained and surreal \u2013 with Maika Monroe\u2019s Agent Lee Harker showing us her special \u2018gift\u2019 from the start, she is able to trace down an initial killer\u2019s house by instinct even if it gets her partner killed. It\u2019s chilling and a cold opening to witness but it sets the tone for 101 minutes of gruelling despair punctuated by a no-hope narrative.\n<\/p>\n Harker is almost autistic-coded in her lack of ability to understand small talk; making up for it with her ability to read a crime scene. It\u2019s what makes her so appealing to Blair Underwood\u2019s Agent Carter, \u201chalf-psychic is better than not psychic at all\u201d, and he\u2019s willing to lean into a cold case with all his might when it becomes a serial killer called Longlegs who gets dragged out of the past. His glam rock obsession gives the movie\u2019s soundtrack its teeth and the white paint a sinister, creepy edge that would scare anyone. All murders are committed within the family with no signs of a forced entry \u2013 rendering the question, who could\u2019ve done this? The telling sign seems to be the father, and the child is murdered nearabouts the 14th birthday in a pattern. It\u2019s cold, it\u2019s calculated \u2013 it\u2019s reminiscent of Se7en<\/i> as well as Twin Peaks<\/i>, but to compare it to both would overinflate Longlegs<\/i>\u2019 worth, the third act is where things fall apart here and you\u2019re left with a sinking feeling of \u201cwas that it?\u201d when the hammerstroke falls \u2013 it\u2019s over too quickly and not really worth all the excellent build up, clunky with exposition.\n<\/p>\n And the build-up is good \u2013 it\u2019s the most I\u2019ve ever seen a film this unflinchingly committed to its excellence, with Monroe quickly proving herself to be a master of the genre and her performances in Watcher<\/i> and It Follows<\/i> really give her strength. Her anti-social charms of Harker make her one of horror\u2019s more compelling lead character creations \u2013 and a sign that more autistic-coded characters should be written into movies if Hollywood isn\u2019t brave enough to make them openly on the spectrum. The sinisiter connection with the occult makes it a devastating reveal when we learn what has happened in Harker\u2019s past, the sinister presence of Longlegs being an inevitable figure over her life and a potentially iconic horror villain is no tall order. \u201cthe man downstairs\u201d, Longlegs refers to the devil by, whose influence is everywhere but never openly stated. Cage\u2019s performance is stone-cold chilling and his most terrifyingly unhinged \u2013 he looked at Killer Bob and thought, \u201cwhat could I have done to make this MORE?\u201d with the amount of restraint that some of his shoutier performances have lacked – it’s a real resemblence of growth for Cage, who presents this role with a rare gravitas that delights in playing an oddball – it’s hard not to find anyone who isn’t unenrved by his singing of Happy Birthday, Agent Harker – or that chilling, Joker-esque performance in the prison when his painted face is shown to the FBI agents on duty.\n<\/p>\n<\/a><\/div>\n