The screen expands and contracts more than once in Longlegs, the new horror-thriller from director Oz Perkins, son of Psycho star Anthony. Shot in the claustrophobic ‘academy ratio’, the film’s chilling opening scene implies the existence of the unknown just outside the frame. A disembodied voice cuckoos to a young girl, luring her away from home and out into the snow. She answers the call, and is met by an oddly dressed man whose face is crucially kept hidden from view. This is the titular Longlegs, a serial killer who has operated in the state of Oregon for decades. Played by Nicolas Cage, he remains unseen for large portions of the movie, inviting the viewer to imagine not only his appearance, but also his crimes. The tension builds; this can’t end well for the girl. Longlegs has murdered dozens of people over the years, but continues to evade capture — both by the feds on his trail, and by the lens of Perkins’ camera. His crimes unfold off-screen. Longlegs is felt more than he is seen. He lurks but doesn’t linger. He haunts but doesn’t hound. He is both a spectre and spectator, orchestrating unspeakable horror from the sidelines. There couldn’t have been a more apt metaphor for the movie’s central thesis: the unseen is ultimately the most unsettling. Also read - Pig: Nicolas Cage pulls his career out of the gutter with one of the most blistering performances of his life Longlegs is presented through the point-of-view of a rookie FBI agent named Lee Harker. Set in the same era as The Silence of the Lambs and Cure — its two biggest influences — the movie doesn't dilly-dally before announcing, in her introductory scene, that she has clairvoyant capabilities. Played by scream queen Maika Monroe, Lee is immediately put through a series of tests that further 'prove' that she has psychic powers, and is quickly assigned the biggest case on the FBI’s desk. Longlegs. Before long, both the movie and Lee have discovered a curious connective tissue between her and the creepy killer, who begins toying with her not too long after she is tasked with tracking him down. How Perkins films Lee — she’s always isolated, stationed at the centre of immaculately composed widescreen frames — encourages a different kind of audience participation. Unlike the claustrophobic pre-credits sequence, the rest of the movie is filmed in a manner that asks you to scrutinise what's on the screen rather than off it. A scene in which Lee works at her desk after nightfall is particularly suspenseful because your eyes can’t stop scanning the background, waiting for someone to pounce from the shadows. The sound design — long stretches of silence punctuated by noises grounded in reality, as opposed to empty sound effects — only heightens the tension of these moments. It’s like the Paranormal Activity aesthetic slapped with an A24 filter. But Longlegs isn't an A24 movie; it's being released, instead, by the arthouse outfit's closest competitor, Neon, who marketed the heck out of it with innovative techniques. The most effective promotional video utilised the movie’s own themes in selling its unique brand of chaotic menace. It teased a third-act confrontation between Lee and Longlegs, but maintained the secrecy around his appearance by obscuring his face behind a black block. Additional text noted that Monroe’s heartbeat increased from around 76 beats per minute to over 170 when she laid eyes on Cage in full makeup. What a way to build anticipation, and that too by concealing crucial details instead of revealing them. The question of what is real and what isn’t creeps up with dreadful regularity. One of the biggest reasons why the feds haven’t been able to nail Longlegs, for instance, is that he wasn’t actually present at the scenes of his purported crimes. It was his demonic influence, we are told, that compelled a dozen suburban dads to annihilate their families. These were good, God-fearing men, who seemingly snapped one day, and in a fit of Satanic rage, axed their wives and children to death. At every crime scene, the police found coded letters signed by the same person, Longlegs. Read more - Bramayugam: Mammootty’s miraculous run continues with the bleakest Indian horror film in years, a take-no-prisoners tirade against humanity He could very well be the supernatural force that the movie paints him as, a ghoul who uses demonic magic to attack the foundations of suburban utopia with his evil. But he could just as easily be a lunatic doll-maker who channels glam rock musicians of the era to commit murder with his bare hands. Both scenarios are equally believable, and Cage certainly plays him like a cross between Pennywise and Perry Farrell. Similarly, Lee could actually be a superhero, or she could simply be a skilled investigator. Once again, the power of imagination is what Perkins is relying on. Nothing is sicker than the human mind. But there’s a reason why he grounds the story in a recognisable time and place. The Satanic Panic of the era influenced how rational folks began to view oddballs. Not too far away in West Memphis, for instance, the police famously arrested three teenagers for child murder because they enjoyed listening to death metal. Their investigation was shaped by their imagination; their minds were filling in gaps that physical evidence couldn’t. Both Lee and Longlegs — weirdos in their own ways — are products of this paranoid period in American history. Monroe plays her with the jitteriness of someone who has temporarily been released from a hostage situation, which, in a strange way, is sort of true. Because underneath its genre thrills, Longlegs is really a movie about the horrors of parenting, the trauma of childhood, and the flimsiness of families. The serial murders are incidental to the plot, which is really about a girl coming to the realisation that the life she actually lived wasn’t the same as the one she imagined she did. Post Credits Scene is a column in which we dissect new releases every week, with particular focus on context, craft, and characters. Because there’s always something to fixate about once the dust has settled.
