Longlegs

The film Longlegs, which is the latest horror offering from the writer/director Osgood Perkins, begins with a young girl named Lee Harker (portrayed by Lauren Acala) setting her eyes out to a dilapidated station wagon as seen parked right at the doorstep of the house from where she sat inside her room.

So, obviously she is curious and decides to go out in the dead of winter, and quite literally on the driveway. Some other children have disparagingly described it where winter children live among the white blanket of snow in suburbia. So, this feels pretty much right at home when the introductory scene is done and as if to add an extra zing, a creepy man Harker encounters lingers too long, peering at her face mask.

The film cuts right at this moment as the man moves into frame, thus, the image of this character is fairly concealed for most of the film. And it is representative of the film itself, as part from apart from empathy where it has meaning for the rest of the story is kept as concealed for a long time, in a good sense or bad sense.

The film then jumps to vindicti Lee Harker now an adult whose character has been acted by Maika Monroe. Lee has now become an FBI agent and in her first field practice, she is practicing what appears to be her craft because she knows where to spot a bullet.

This interests her boss, whom we learn, at the centre of the story, Agent Carter played by Blair Underwood who wants to utilize her skills in a homicide that has stayed without any effect for more than 30 years. The murders themselves are no less enigmatic than a stranger who refers to himself as Longlegs (Nicolas Cage).

Longlegs is not present physically at any of the crime scenes, however like Manson he masterminds all of them and also funds their logistics. Carter has one objective in mind having Harker on board; to find out Longleg’s reason for being involved in the plot.

Longlegs wants more than just waiting on the periphery after Harker gets fully sued into the investigation. Harker spends most of her time occupied in solving the biggest puzzle but the more she goes into it the crazier it becomes.

Like so many other films of the horror/thriller genre, Longlegs is also influenced by various films including Jonathan Demmes The Silence of the Lambs and David Finchers thrillers Seven and Zodiac. Perkins even shows his wish to go by the structure of The Silence of the Lambs selling it as ‘bait’ for the masses.

The most contentious issue is the perceived difference between Longlegs and those films as Perkins for most of the film appears reluctant to offer any explanation which means a lot of those characters are no different than the ciphers Longlegs leaves at every murder scene.

The psychology of Buffalo Bill was actually the crux of the story in this film very much along the lines of The Silence of the Lambs. It’s the whole reason why Clarnce S tarling comes to see Hannibal, he needs help identifying the killer who’s terrorizing women and wants to understand the motivation behind it all.

There is no proper understanding of the mind of Longlegs, and even when Harker does manage to get him to talk, there is very little concrete for what’s going on in his head or why he chose to murder, aside from the apparent one of Satanism.

While this came out as purposeful, it provides for scenes that are rather shallow faced apart from this ominous mood that Perkins himself admits he is good at. With not much in the way of depth however, it finally results in a rather empty feeling experience.

It also adds to the complexity of the film Longlegs which makes it that much more a good subject for discourse analysis. There has been debate on the internet as to whether the film is a horror film or is a mixed a drama crime-thriller such as the aforementioned Silence of the Lambs and Seven.

Although there most certainly is a Longlegs mystery plot, Perkins wants to tread deeper waters and is more interested in instilling everlasting fear and anxiety rather than erecting a complex and intricate puzzle for Harker, and as a consequence the audience, to figure out.

The irony with movies like Zodiac is that it doesn’t leave you any illusions; these horrors are not only dramatized but have also happened in real life with the worst results. On the other hand, movies like the Silence of the Lambs are thrilling in the knowledge that Buffalo Bill is the killer and all that is left is to see how quickly Starling gets to him before it is too late.

The terror of Longlegs is yet another confusing addition in that it tends to come more as an embellishment rather than something that can in any way be frightening. Of course, Nicolas Cage is quite disturbing in the looks department. He bears some garbage-incerning bone structures, some disproportionate skin skin color, and the facial layout is a complete shock.

None of the characters don’t even want to ask (wearing Sheiden’s character head here, of whom there are more than half of the characters, including investigative FBI agents) why, where did their facial distortion and or skin discolouration vanish to.

So it assists quite a lot in making Dr Hannibal Lecter very dangerous, the effect of the quietness in the acting by Anthony Hopkins as this character sort of partly aided him in the creepiness of the character. Instead Cage’s aspect of dramatics (the main reason why he took on the role in the first place is because of how psychologically taxing getting into the head of that character and portraying him in a convincing fashion would be) comes off as excessive and almost hilarious (indeed jaw dropping comical).

It’s not so much because of Cage’s acting where I suspect that he would have good ideas about the psychology of the character, but because the script of the movie is what seeks attention. Longlegs comes off as predictable and pointless, which is to say that the whodunnit aspect to it is truly lacking and so it can’t really be categorized as a procedural drama.

On those terms, it is much better as a horror movie – to be precise a psychological horror movie, rather than just a terrifying one. Although there is something horrifying about being a Satanist too, not all serial killers need the justification and history.

The unraveling of the enigma and the character of Longlegs’s motives – yes, that too was somewhat underwhelming, honestly speaking. As far as this adventure had no particular meaning for me, I remained quite apathetic – but since you are an audience, your mileage may differ.

It seems that Longlegs has positioned herself in an aporia that is trapped between mass market mentality and art house feel. The characters are non-existent, are poorly sketched and mostly sparsely populated to serve or rather not add any value to the story except assist in moving it forward. And behavior or actions also seem odd to directionless.

And in one conversation between Harker and Agent Carter, where Harker explains as one of the ciphers to Carter. Carter says, “Help me understand this,” and so Harker explains further more to him. Carter answers more of this and I was, to say the least, really taken aback why a senior FBI supervisor, who must have worked on this case for a couple of years at least, thinks it even important that somebody has to spell it out to him in such length (or why the agent couldn’t figure out what Harker was trying to put across without going in detail).

The film does not end there either. For example, there is another scene where Longlegs punctures a cipher in Harker’s personal quarters, and instead of calling it in right away, differently from the first instance of joint-acting, she reads the contents and extracts it herself. Clearly such murky and inconsiderate actions are meant to advance the story in the film however it seems irrational to the course in which characters or the plot develop.

In actuality, I discovered that there was still not much about Harker’s character that I had learned. Monroe is good, better than her material, still, I want Harker to have a little bit of more of interiority.

It’s impossible not to remember how well Clarice Starling was turned out more than a decade ago in The Silence of the Lambs. There is an early sequence in the movie where she is traveling for a covert assignment to meet Jack Crawford who is her boss at the FBI.

The step into the elevator is made with overwhelming numbers of FBI trainees some of whom are shorter younger and indeed all are male. I can even say that you can track her entire journey and trajectory in the character arc of Clarice in that one small visual moment.

Clarice was revealed to us in detail in the film where we witnessed her interactions and interaction with Crawford, with Hannibal Lecter and with her best friends Ardelia. Longlegs’s ending is extremely dear to harker’s heart, still, however, the film is so much about building the atmosphere of the fear that most of the plot and the characters were blank slates and enormous mysteries, unexplained to the viewer.

Obscured imagery is also a significant aspect in the film Longlegs. Some characters are positioned at the very edge of the frame, with the camera very tactfully focusing on scenes such as dark hallways, poorly lighted areas, and far away shots of open spaces.

Steven Spielberg, as many others, however, explaining added Miss Eye Movies was the camera, which sees and therefore, vice versa, does not see. It is hard to elaborate how the film Longlegs presents the principle of omission because the film actually indulges a lot of emotion but manages to restrict concentrated censorship from its viewers.

While it sets the mood perfectly well; all of the action and development which takes place within the frame is empty. But our intellectual curiosity factors honor Perkins (‘the professor’) seated the horror, understatement too scaring too the dreadful unknown, more, Shanghai, the actual one dispersed, sane of’ individuals; within narrative and tangible constructs.

The entire point of the horror in Longlegs is made unreal as a point in itself and also as a skill used to convey the nightmare, real performance could have terrified even the bravest people.

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