Review: Longlegs (2024)

Longlegs is something of a strange film. It follows a path and turns out to be not quite what you expected come the end.

Nominally it's about a female police detective, Lee Harper, who is hunting a serial killer who kills following a somewhat eccentric pattern of dates related to the birthday of his victims.  But the killings all seem to be carried out by the father of the victim, who kills his daughter, but anyone else around also.

So there's a pattern but no obvious motives until an occult element is thrown into the mix involving a life-sized doll which each victim is sent, in the head of which is a strange silver orb which seems to contain something and yet nothing.

As the plot unfolds, Harper finds that she is at the centre of events, and that the mysterious Longlegs, so called as by the name he signs coded messages left at each killing, has plans for her personally.

I enjoyed the film, though it is somewhat hard to work out what is happening. Not as hard as some critics made out though, and ultimately all becomes clear. The ideas are rooted in Satanic beliefs and in evil, as well as a touch of voodoo. There's a healthy dose of Silence of the Lambs in here also, and while Nicholas Cage, who plays the deranged (or is he) Longlegs is not a patch on Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lekter, there is much to appreciate and enjoy in his performance.

The explanations when they come are impactful for Harper and her family, and leave a lot of thoughts in the mind as to what happened next. I don't think it needs a sequel though as this is complete in and of itself.

It's telling that the BluRay I have has a very non-descript cover on it (same as the poster shown here). Obviously the marketing team had no idea what to make of this either.

I have often said that I have not seen a film with Nick Cage in that I haven't enjoyed, and this does not break that run. Enjoyable and thought provoking, which is what every film should be.