LONGLEGS - Movie Review 

Also the Nixon portrait

It’s the 90’s!

Love too hang a picture of the current President in my house so I remember which era I'm in

@@RyanMicherolmaooo it’s standard practice in federal offices to do so. Or at least was up through the early 2010s. Not so sure anymore

Gross guy

*gross guy Details matter. Especially if you don't even get your 'best line' right 😂😂

That line made me laugh so loudly lmao. She was one of the only people that felt like an actual human in the whole movie

*Dad, it's that gross man again!😵‍💫🤣🤣*

Ya that was part of the script. 🤫

u know ur with the right person when u hate the same stuff lol

That scene made me laugh

Foster was pretty darn good imo.

Fellow Cooper fan who thought the same thing: Take my like! 🤘

Horror movies with great soundtracks are *tight!*

Don’t ask that question. They will say either the “conjuring” or “paranormal activity”

Speak no Evil for me is the most disturbing movie of the last few years, quite chilling, if you haven't seen it give it a go

​@@mattcollins3591lol 🤣

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, give that one a go

Any answer will be very subjective, as what scares one person will make another laugh. The only film ever really scared me = Alien. Great atmospheric horror films = Babadook and also It Follows (slow but great soundscape).

Life is not logical, cohesive, coherent or even consistent, why should a movie be? Genuine question, besides there's a beauty in sloppiness too.

Lol lack of cohesion?!? Pathetic review. I regret being one of those people defending those who clearly read prior reviews and used those to state their "opinions" 😅

@@NakatomiD If I rub a guitar on my butt, is that music? The modern art crowd would say yes, the other 99.9 percent of the population wouldn't. You're letting your feelings forgive bad filmmaking. Your opinion opens the door to chaos and renders the artform meaningless. You might as well watch two hours of a black screen in complete silence if you're just going to use your imagination and not care about any basic rules or standards.

@@NakatomiD Sure, I will say that many of my favorite films, in fact, actually greatly benefit from their obscurity, ambiguity, non-linear storytelling, or even occasional illogic. I mean, take, for instance, the stilted acting/dialogue pervasive in most of Yorgos Lanthimos’s films, the surreal presentation of films like Persona (1966), or the defiance of a strict forward chronological retelling of events in films like Memento (2000) or Irreversible (2002). (All of these films are personal favorites of mine.) However, in each of these examples I cited, I can deduce some sort of a rationale for or purpose of their nontraditional presentations, even if the reason is not apparent to me at first. Yes, of course, life often defies easy analysis (as do many acclaimed films) and there’s the whole “art imitates life” thing (and vice versa), but, naturally, a film is much different than life itself in that it can be purposefully and creatively crafted/presented in a certain way to convey a certain message, so why not exploit this? Films often benefit from having at least some level of cohesion and coherence even if only for the purpose of engaging the audience (not that there isn’t room for some level of allegory and abstraction and whatnot). It doesn’t make sense to me to opt for multiple layers of convolution when a more linear approach would work much better. (In fact, I think that’s largely why Silence of the Lambs works much better than this film.) That being said, if I find a film to be incoherent or illogical in some way, I would hope that it’s doing so intentionally (even if that purpose is merely to imitate life), in which case I should be able to eventually come to an understanding of why it’s being done. (I find Coherence (2013), for the record, to be a prime exemplar of this sort of purposeful convolution of the narrative.) If not, I’d tend to deem its messiness as inadvertent (and, therefore, an oversight), an attempt to conceal other flaws in the film, or a failed arthouse attempt. I guess, maybe you could make the argument that the incoherence of the film, at times, muddied the true source of the horror and served this end as such, but idk… I’m not totally convinced, since this “source” ultimately becomes quite clear by the end of the film, all the while the messiness never subsided. It’s actually so strange saying this because, while my main gripe with the film is its muddiness, I almost feel like it could have worked better if bits and pieces of the final act (without giving anything in particular away) were removed in order to render the source of the horror a bit more ambiguous. Idk, I almost feel like it could have been more compelling that way, since I found many of the “reveals” at the end to be quite silly, predictable, and nonsensical. Anyway, basically, I think it’s important to make a distinction between (1) technical flaws and oversights and (2) the deliberate inclusion of incoherence in some way, shape, or form, and, unfortunately, to me anyway, this film fell more in the former of these two camps. I will also say (and this is somewhat similar to part of what @synical13 said), if I were to become too liberal with my acceptance of incoherence in films, I could easily consequently excuse technical oversights or otherwise fail to differentiate them from purposeful obscurity/ambiguity… and ig this is more or less the point I’m getting at here. Unfortunately, I just found this film’s lack of cohesion to be due to its affinity to style over substance, the unbelievability and unconvincingness of many of the major plot points and twists (I’m sure you know which in particular I’m referring to if you’ve seen it), and its inability to commit to a particular tone, and I mean this mostly in the sense of whether or not it’s aiming to take itself seriously… I mean, I’m gonna be totally real, the goofiness of Nicolas Cage’s character just did NOT work for me at all, especially when placed in a film that’s otherwise very heavy and bleak, though I understand I may be in the minority here in opining this. Of course, a lot of what I’m saying here comes down to personal taste, and I certainly do not hope to discredit or bash anyone else’s positive reviews of this film, but it just did not land for me as a whole (and this is coming from an avid fan of eccentric/offbeat horror). Also, I will say, I know I’m speaking very negatively about this film, but, in truth, I really didn’t ABHOR it overall. The first act was quite good actually, and I found the setup/premise rather intriguing. If just looking at the visuals/aesthetics and sound design alone, this film absolutely crushes it, but there really isn’t much of anything redeemable when you strip these things away. I so appreciate your comment though, as it did get me thinking quite a bit, as evidenced by my very long-winded response lol 😅

I wanted to like this so much, but I felt it was predictable and I knew where it was headed the whole time. This is probably because I’ve seen the Japanese 90’s movie Cure which was a much better film. If you haven’t seen Cure you should definitely check it out. I will say it was a genius marketing campaign.

I was hoping it was like 7 killers

Classic horror movie. 😁

Critics being wrong and the movie being really good is fine. The issue is that they're all saying these movies are masterpieces and they aren't.

Not scary.

They both were neither.

Did you go see it?

@@kellyaustin7487 yes, my point was the marketing of horror movies in hyperbolic,

Superlatives are never absolutes I guess

He was a complete nightmare in the best way. Just saw it. Sheesh. 😂

I saw it in a packed theater as well yesterday. Unfortunately, about 1/4 of the theater were giggling/laughing every scene Cage was in. One could assume these viewers came in hoping he'd go "full Cage". It was really annoying.

@@bryanshields5571it was a good movie but yeah there was a few too many over the top cage acting(def was getting faceoff vibes from him at parts). When he toned it down a bit he was way creepier

I kinda like nicolas cage more the Buffalo bill.

Who are you quoting?

This was not a “horror” movie. Supernatural serial killer thriller, but not scary or a horror movie.

@@LordOberon67 Totally fair -- i agree after having seen it, but the marketing isn't clear, I think -- plus I saw others calling this one of the best 'horror' movies...also it's hard to know the difference sometimes between something being "thrilling" vs "scary". Ultimately, it's just semantics (for this movie*)

@@Ausgrave Thrillers are usually marketed as horror because they know they can catch more flies that way.

@@synical13 Gotcha, makes sense...I had no idea the discussion I was about to kick off...I wonder if all the critics and RU-vidrs calling this a horror movie are going to face this, lol. I appreciate an academic discussion here and there, though -- I agree...strictly speaking, this is a supernatural thriller, I believe

If you know what you getting yourself in to then I think you will have a good time. It's not a horror film, it definitely a more of a crime drama with horror elements thrown to the mix, but it's not a full blown horror movie. Nic Cage performance was interesting because at first I was kind of debating if I am liking it or not but eventually he did get under my skin and I started to really enjoy his performance, he was great. But I can totally see some people think his performance was laughable or too ridiculous or unrealistic (even tho I believe there were and still are people like that, maybe not serial killers but who are completely out of they minds and act literally the same way.) Maika Monroe is great, the actress who plays Lee's mother in the film was fantastic, she was creepy af. But anyways I am not going to go into too much details as you have not seen the film but I am still thinking about this film as I have seen like 2 hours ago and it's a type of film that demands a second viewing, I don't think you will get everything out of this film in one go. So I will be definitely checking it out second time but alone at home when it finally comes out on a streaming platform. Also, Cinematography and Sound Design in this film is chef's kiss!

For sure, and if she or anyone else hasn't seen it The Blackcoat's Daughter/February then I think that's his one film you should give a chance. It has all the moody atmosphere but in my opinion an extremely layered emotional landscape as well.

If I were him, I would bring in other talent to make up for my shortcomings so I would end up with a well-rounded film that doesn't require forgiveness from the audience to enjoy. He's only serving himself when he should be serving the entire project. If all he cares about is style in a medium that requires more, that's a problem that needs to be addressed, not waved away.

​@@synical13yeah he needs a great scree writer .

Agreed. Blackcoat's Daughter is one of my favorite horror films of the last 15 years.

What does it mean for Nick Cage to play against type?

@@mattzalot2576 While Cage has done versatile roles in the past, both intentionally comedic as well as very serious, this role was a whole next level for him - or at least it is to me. It was like watching Tom Cruise in Collateral.

Agree with your review . Didn't love the film. Very messy and uneven . Good cinematography but the movie as a whole is mess. Nicolage cage was good in the confrontation scene wish his role was longer . Hated how they explained it all in the end .

Omg fr!! She def could have saved the last family she didn’t even try. All she did was whine cry & pant heavily the whole movie it really pissed me off. She’s also the dumbest fbi agent I’ve ever seen . 😭😭 not once did she even think about calling for backup.

@@Logannariannaaaa man her not calling for backup really pissed me off. At the beginning and the end not once did she even seem to consider it. Also how did they find longlegs so fast after getting one 20 year old picture of him ? And speaking of the picture, where did Lee get the camera from? She didn’t have a camera in the first scene of the movie. And why was longlegs targeting Lee in the first place when every other family that got murdered was mom dad and at least one kid. And how does someone kill themselves from hitting their head a few times on a table ?

1) I’ll give you the first one 2) She’s clearly tense about this case and her role in it given how oddly structured her memories are so it most likely stopped her from doing so 3) We can assume that given the dolls are vehicles for manipulation, they are more than likely destroyed by Longlegs. When one survives like the girl we see, he buries the doll somewhere.

@@Klamp20XX then why give Agent Carter the picture? Why hold anything back ? Also how did they find longlegs soo fast after they got a 20 year old picture of him? Where did Lee even get the camera to take the picture because she doesn’t have a camera in the opening scene. The camera just appears right before she takes the picture. Why didn’t Lee ever call for backup? two FBI agents get murdered while with her she watches both happen in real time and she doesn’t call for backup in either case ? How does someone kill themselves by banging their head a few times on a table . And why did longlegs even target Lee in the first place when every other family was a mom dad and kid . Why did he target this single mother when he doesn’t do that the rest of the film

@@isaiahwilliams2332 1) The giving of the picture is not the same as the letter. The letter establishes communication, while the picture only establishes experience. One would make her a direct suspect given the connection, but the picture doesn’t provide that for the current moment. 2) Given the fact that both agents died by following her lead and the fact that dark Satanic magic seems ludicrous to the department, makes sense she wouldn’t do that in this case. Plus, given that Longlegs is dead, they believe the case is closed. 3) Longlegs clearly possesses abilities and methods beyond comprehension as a part of serving Satan. This is not fully explained, but can be inferred. 4) The implication is that Longlegs meeting Lee and her mother was one of his first acts. He’s still doing the deeds by himself. He doesn’t establish the MO until after this experience. This is proto-Longlegs. We can actually guarantee this given the fact that from here on out, he makes the dolls in the Harker basement because any location other than that poses difficulties for him.

That BREATHING, LOL! Finally someone who found that so, so irritating like me!

100%.

Yeah, I did not like all the reaches. He unknowingly lived in the basement, she randomly got assigned to a case she's personally involved with, her mother was the accomplice, the metallic ball with mind control powers. Lots of poor explanations and random occurrences. LongLegs as a psychological and cerebral game playing murderer was presented as an unintelligent babblin crazy person. This is a huge congruency issue. This brought the movie down to a C grade. I don't prefer to have my storytelling intelligence insulted.

hello c l a r i c e

“Silence of the Lambs and Hereditary had an A24 baby” is a 100% spot-on description!

@@drwsldrt both of those are much better than this though.

So a different reviewer with a different perspective isn't intelligent? 🤔 Did you wait until you found a match?

@@kellyaustin7487 The intelligent comment was about her channel on the whole, not about this one review. I follow quite a few different review channels. In no way does someone have to agree with my opinion for them to be intelligent. That's a very silly thing to think. The thing I love about the film (and specifically horror, which I am more involved in) community is the vast array of views and opinions on film. I am quite vexed by anyone that thinks that the only good film discourse is the one that agrees with their own views. That's not what art is about at all.

The best part of the film tbh

@@Lifeoftheparty8290 fr…longlegs was so disappointing

No it just sucks flat out. Dialogue is written by Tommy wiseau himself. Performances are lackluster and cinematography was awful and under serving to this shit story. There’s absolutely no reason to continually be on ultra wide lenses the entire time other than trying to set a vibe. This movie just sucks

​@@SeanFBoydWhy do all those things suck though? It's like you just write a checklist: This bad This bad This bad. I never critique a film unless I'm specific

@@SeanFBoydsounds like ur mad it’s successful

Isn't it strange how there manages to be a new "most terrifying film ever" every few months? I can't even take a walk anymore without stepping on a few new horror masterpieces, they're like cicadas out there.

There was more screen time with Bill Clinton.

@@Nelly34e I was laughing hysterically at all of his scenes despite by best efforts not to. Cringe, over-the-top performance

@@danielbarrero2815it was like 30 percent to over the top, when he was less zany he was actually really good

His performance reminded me of Paul Dano's Riddler. Which I hated.

You are fooling yourself. This movie was boring and his performance sucked. If you think this is chilling or unsettling in any way you must have terrible taste in movies overall. A really boring film.

So you enjoyed the social experience, but did you actually enjoy the movie? Would you enjoy watching it at home all alone and then have no peers who saw it to discuss it with after?