Longlegs

MOVIE #1,949 • SCORE 9/10 • 09.05.24
SERIES: NICOLAS CAGE A-Z ACTOR FOCUS (Ch. 70)

I have a feeling we’ll look back at this later period of Nicolas Cage’s filmography with even more fondness than we are in the moment. He’s really hitting a nice stride, vacillating between big crazy performances (Prisoners of the Ghostland), subtle, meditative ones (Pig) and landing somewhere in between (Dream Scenario). His titular character in Longlegs is firmly in the big crazy department, immediately registering as one of his loudest, hammiest, weirdest takes on acting yet (and that’s saying something). If you’re a hater of Crazy Cage, then this will be your Exhibit 1A. But if you love it (like me) then you’ll be smiling ear-to-ear, which is a strange place to find yourself during a film about a demonic serial killer. I saw this in the theater and immediately recorded a podcast on my way home…



He's unrecognizable in this, donning the same comically large nose from Deadfall/Arsenal and Never on Tuesday plus another full face worth of prosthetics, caked-on white make-up and a wig. And I cackled during almost every one of his (all-too-brief) appearances. Because, even though he's the title character, this is FBI agent Maika Monroe's (final girl of It Follows — probably the best working Scream Queen in film today) movie. She gives a guarded performance here that is layered and — in my view — more complex than it appears. I think there's a subtext that she's not entirely a force of good, but I also feel like this is open to interpretation. The film is slow and brooding and Cage's blips of insanity are the perfect juxtaposition.

Writer-director Osgood Perkins is the son of Psycho's Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins). This is his fourth directorial horror feature (with a fifth on the way) and I definitely want to check out his other movies soon.

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Longlegs is a 2024 American horror-thriller film written and directed by Osgood Perkins, and starring Maika Monroe, Nicolas Cage, Blair Underwood, and Alicia Witt. Set in the 1990s, it follows an FBI agent tasked with tracking down an occultist serial killer responsible for murdering multiple families throughout the state of Oregon, without having been physically present in the crimes. Cage also served as a producer on the film through his Saturn Films production company. It was released on July 12, 2024.