About halfway through the movie Longlegs (VF), one of the characters says that he feels like he’s in a “dark dream, a long dark dream.” And that’s the perfect description of Osgood “Oz” Perkins’ new horror thriller. It follows Lee Harker, a rookie FBI agent who is on the trail of a serial killer nicknamed Longlegs, who is wiping out families according to a modus operandi with satanic connotations. Oddly, Lee seems connected to the murderer’s psyche. And it is hypnotized, paralyzed, that we sink into this hallucinatory dream following the young woman.
From the opening sequence, when a child, noticing a car parked on the edge of the isolated property where she lives with her mother, ventures outside to take a closer look, Osgood Perkins creates an atmosphere that is as sinister as it is anxiety-provoking. Nicolas Cage enters the scene, as the title killer, but without us seeing his face. His voice is enough to make you sweat. (Also a producer, Cage is IN-CREDI-BLE.)
These two short minutes, which we will revisit towards the denouement, are unbearable and culminate in a shock likely to make even the most steadfast hearts skip a few beats.
Far from struggling to match this initial little miracle of horror, the director and screenwriter continues to increase the level of tension and to obscure the mystery, in what turns out to be a terrifying investigation at the end of a nightmare.
Like in his past horror films The Blackcoat’s Daughter And I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the HousePerkins favors a slow-burning suspense methodically fed, which keeps one on the edge of one’s seat. For example, a simple zoom in, almost imperceptible, becomes the vector of an unspeakable anguish.
Sinister dreaminess
As in its previous Gretel and Hansela sumptuous and dark reinterpretation of the classic tale espousing the sister’s perspective and detailing her complex relationship with the witch-jailer, the filmmaker makes, in Longlegsan extremely refined use of light, and especially of shadows.
Take this passage in which Lee (Maika Monroe, revealed in It Followshere brilliant in his stubborn stiffness) and his superior, Carter (Blair Underwood, solid, deadpan), go to a farm. At the beginning, the sequence is clearly set in reality, but the more the exploration of the place progresses, the more said reality seems to escape the frame.
When Lee and Carter step into the barn’s loft, two shafts of light from high skylights give the place the appearance of an eerie theater scene. Unreality reigns, but just subtly enough to instill unease.
Such moments, where a sinister dreaminess insidiously takes over from the immediately down-to-earth developments, are numerous, and always perfectly mastered. The slight stylization of the dialogues, which have a literary side – a constant with Perkins, as the main person concerned confided to us in an interview – contributes to the growing impression of walking in Lee’s “dark dream, the long dark dream.”
Deadly poetry
A word on the comparison with The Silence of the Lambs (Thesilenceofthelambs), frequents since the various festival screenings of Longlegs. Despite its sought-after symbolism, Jonathan Demme’s masterpiece is fundamentally realistic, especially in its investigation section. Conversely, Osgood Perkins’ film, which relies on supernatural springs, is intrinsically fantastic, including in its police section.
The association obviously comes from the fact that both films star a young female FBI agent. Except that, again, the similarities between the studious and ambitious Clarice Starling and the focused and haunted Lee Harker are superficial.
It is worth noting that Lee is following in the footsteps of her predecessors at Osgood Perkins, whose four films feature young female protagonists. Longlegsthe filmmaker explicitly cites in this case The Blackcoat’s Daughter (which I recommend to you).
In any case, his heroines are each time initially intrigued by some enigma to be solved, but ultimately find themselves confronted with themselves. In this ultimate game of mirrors with this inhibited “self”, a recurring motif in his cinema, Perkins draws an extra soul and an extra dose of fear.
All this to say that Longlegs is not bad “his own creature”, his own monster. A deadly, putrid poetry emerges from it, but which, far from repelling, arouses a fascination, yes, morbid.