Laura McKenna’s Movie Review: Longlegs

Long LLLLLegs!

Much to the annoyance of everyone around me, including my mom, I just randomly kept singing “Long LLLLLLLLLegs!” in outburst fashion ever since we purchased our tickets for Tuesday afternoon’s showing.

Mama Linda is in town visiting and what better movie to take your mother to than a serial killer movie called “Longlegs”, right?    But like mother, like daughter, she was down immediately!

I say all this because I WANTED to love this movie.    I’ve been excited for it ever since watching “The Blackcoat’s Daughter” (2015) just this past winter.   “Longlegs” is written and directed by the same guy, Oz Perkins.

So I went in WANTING to like it.  

Mom and I went to the movies here in Wisconsin and my husband went in Ohio so we could, in a way, all see it at the same time.  

We ended up with three different takeaways:
-He hated it.
-My mom liked it up until the ending.
-And I liked it but can’t say I LOVED it (like I so badly wanted to).

This won’t spoil anything for you…
-If you like creepy, slow burning yet jump right in action- it’s got that.
-If you like scenes that are so surprisingly gory that you have to look away, it’s got that, too.
-If you heard that “Longlegs” was reminiscent of “The Silence of the Lambs”, you heard right.  Although nothing can, nor ever will, beat Hannibal and Clarice for Best Onscreen Duo. The ending of Longlegs was just a bit of a letdown.   I always say, I don’t have to like the way a movie wraps up, but it needs to somehow wrap up.   I just felt like that part could have been better.

Nicholas Cage, however, was SO FREAKING GOOD as the creepy serial killer villain.   Had I not known that was Nicholas Cage going in, I would not have believed it.   In fact, they kept him out of all the previews for that very reason.  Seeing him onscreen for the first time just gave you such creeps.  In some interviews, he said that performance would be his first and last as a serial killer because he just didn’t enjoy playing awful characters like that.  But he’s dang good at it.

The one thing that perhaps no one else but me (and maybe you) would notice:  the credits at the end.   The rolling came from the wrong direction!   My mom and I were sitting after it was over (because we were the only two people in that showing), still munching popcorn and discussing the movie, when I abruptly stopped and said, “These credits are wrong!”

She looked at me like I’ve lost my mind (which, you know, sometimes that may hold true).   But then we sat there awhile longer watching the credits roll from top to bottom instead of bottom to top and concluded:   Yes, indeed that’s the first time we’ve ever seen the credits scroll like that.   Such an odd little thing that seemed so out of place, especially after watching some of the horrific things we’d just witnessed on screen.   That apparently was what would keep me up at night, not the gore and sinister plotlines.

Would I recommend it?   Yeah.  
Although if you asked my husband, he would tell you to skip it.   
Would I watch it again?   I think I would wait to stream it on a dark and stormy night for optimum fright factor.     Because that’s the level of scary movie fan I am.   I like to be alone, late at night, watching these types of movies….  and then drift off to a peaceful slumber.