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Directed by Oz Perkins (he played David in “Legally Blonde” and is the son of icon Anthony Perkins), Longlegs is a stunningly beautiful (purely aesthetically), overly hyped, overly complicated, but still pretty delightful movie I rewatched for the first time yesterday and I have a lot of feelings.

The comparisons to “The Silence of the Lambs” (1991) were one of the first things I saw when Longlegs hit theatres, which definitely pushed me to see the film ASAP because who doesn’t love Silence of the Lambs?! Lee Harker (the protagonist, played by Maika Monroe) does a great Clarice Starling impression; the alienation from her family, the lack of experience, the awkwardness in social situations (same) all evoke visions of the iconic Jodie Foster character. However, for me the unseasoned protagonist and the detective procedural aspects are where the comparisons to Silence of the Lambs end. I remember seeing people on the internet up in arms about the character of Longlegs (played by the delightfully unhinged Nicholas Cage), implying that the character is supposed to be viewed as trans (a la Buffalo Bill, which is a whole other blog post for future me to write), casting a shitty shadow on a group of people who have enough to worry about without lazy writers shitting on them too. I don’t see it. I see a dude who fried his brain on big bad satanism and got real weird with it. But that’s part of the fun of watching movies; they’re subjective, right?

So let’s talk about one of my favorite parts of the movie. The dolls. The evil devil orb in the head of the dolls. The AESTHETIC of the GLOWING EVIL EYES through the shrouds in which the dolls are wrapped. Good lord. HAUNTING. ICONIC. Referencing the evil devil ball, when the man doing the doll autopsy remarks on how he thought he was hearing the name of his ex wife (after we hear the noises [or do we?] the evil devil ball makes), is that just meant to be a funny har har joke or is the evil devil ball trying to influence him to kill his ex wife or seek her out in some way in spite of better judgement? Does it make all people do bad shit because it’s of the devil? Or is it only effective on the specific families Longlegs targets? What is it made out of? If the dude *did* end up cutting it open did something happen? Did he die? Did he kill his ex wife? Who knows! I don’t! We do know that the dolls Longlegs makes all have their own special evil devil balls. Love that for them.

As the movie winds down we get to see first hand how Longlegs and his accomplice took care of business. It’s fucking horrifying watching the evil devil ball do its thing. HOWEVER. and, MAJOR spoilers ahead… but why didn’t Carter take the necessary steps to protect his family and daughter WHEN RUBY AND LEE HAVE THE SAME BIRTHDAY AND LONGLEGS WAS TARGETING LITTLE GIRLS BORN ON A CERTAIN DAY. Bro.

Another element I could have done without, and this may just be my personal bias speaking (she was convincingly awful in “Mad Men”), but Kiernan Shipka- was she necessary? I feel like she was there to offer some exposition that we’d either already gotten or could have gotten without her. When Lee goes to visit her character, the scene pulls the e-brake on the whole movie and it comes skidding to a halt. This paragraph could also all be a navel-gazing hate wank because I didn’t care for “The Blackcoat’s Daughter” (Oz Perkins and Kiernan Shipka’s prior collaboration) and I take full responsibility for that (sorry).

I overall enjoyed the movie, although I think they tried to do too much and didn’t end up doing enough. Smashing together a serial killer story (hello, the Zodiac Killer) with the occult, the satanic panic, actually Satan himself, spooky dolls, child killings, etc. was doing the most, in my humble opinion (again, same). Not saying I don’t enjoy all of those tropes because trust me, dear reader, I DO.

ANYWAY, I think I enjoyed it more upon a second viewing, noticed more, with fresh eyes, what have you. I’d rate Longlegs 3.5/5

As always, I recommend checking https://www.doesthedogdie.com/ for any triggers or things you don’t want to see before starting *any* horror movie.

all views expressed are my own, you don’t have to agree with them!

feel free to leave any movie recommendations or anything you’d like to read a review of!