Summary
- Maika Monroe shines in Longlegs with a dynamic performance alongside Nicolas Cage.
- The film loses its edge by attributing the killings to possession by an evil doll.
- Longlegs fails to fully develop the serial killer, making him less menacing and mysterious.
As a horror fan, I always look forward to a movie starring Maika Monroe. Ever since I first saw her in the 2014 film It Follows, I knew she was a star to watch. Like many others who appreciate this genre, I was excited to check out Longlegs, Oz Perkins’s 2024 release starring Nicolas Cage as a brutal and mysterious serial killer. Cage is no stranger to the horror genre and often plays wild and nonsensical characters. I looked forward to seeing what he would bring to the table here.
The trailer and description of Longlegsmade the film seem like an updated version of The Silence of the Lambs: an intriguing story of a killer playing a cat-and-mouse game with a young FBI agent. And while that is certainly true, there is one part of Longlegs that I just can’t get behind. Although Longlegs is one of the best horror movies of 2024, I keep asking the same question, and I think other horror fans are wondering about this, too.
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I Don’t Love This One Part Of Longlegs
Longlegs is an impressive movie for so many reasons. Monroe and Cage’s performances are dynamic and memorable and the eerie setting never lets up for one moment. Longlegs is also an effective villain. He’s unnerving and has a penchant for yelling out of nowhere, which makes him unpredictable. But I don’t like the explanation for why all these killings took place: that the devil has possessed Longlegs. He convinces Lee Harker’s (Monroe) mother Ruth (Alicia Witt) to deliver a possessed doll to the victim’s houses. Each time, the pattern repeats: the father kills his family before killing himself. Lee didn’t remember Longlegs coming to visit her at her home when she was a kid. She was understandably traumatized by the experience and the doll also stopped her from remembering.
I would have preferred any explanation to this one. Wrapping up the story with an explanation of an evil doll’s magic was disappointing. There are plenty of great movies about killer dolls, from the campy M3GAN to the villain in the upcoming film Companion. Longlegs is a psychological thriller and didn’t need to rely on this common horror movie trope, and I think the ending missed the mark. The doll explanation felt cheesy, not frightening, and it didn’t fit with the unsettling, sparse, and literary tone of the movie.
This explanation makes Longlegs less scary than he should be. It’s also a problem because it removes Longlegs from the action. Longlegs should be a dangerous serial killer who goes on killing sprees himself. Instead, he manipulates others to do his work for him. While he’s better than Josh Hartnett’s villain in Trap, I don’t think he’s quite as great as he could be.
The ending of Longlegs also makes it impossible to get to know the villain himself. The focus is on Lee learning about her mother’s connection to him, not on getting Longlegs’ backstory. I had so many questions about him, from how he first heard the devil’s musings to when he put this evil place in place. Sure, it’s impossible not to shiver when staring at Longlegs’ face, which is often caked with makeup. His stringy hair is chilling, too. But I wanted to get more of a full picture and not just a few snapshots, and so I felt that Longlegs fell short in that department.
What Other Horror Movies Did Maika Monroe Star In?
Monroe has starred in several horror movies, including It Follows, Watcher, The Guest, Greta, and Villains. I agree that Watcher is Monroe’s best scary film. The actress played Julia, a woman who becomes lost and lonely when she moves to Bucharest with her husband Francis (Karl Glusman). Julia realizes a man is stalking her and becomes caught up in trying to stop him. It’s a pulse-pounding, tense story that never lets up, and it’s also a thoughtful exploration of safety in a big city.
In an interview with Marie Claire, Monroe shared why she is so interested in starring in horror movies. She reflected on playing final girl characters and said:
“The horror genre has come such a long way. Even just in the past 10 years, to me, [horror has been] some of the most interesting roles that I read, most interesting scripts. It’s just not this sort of typical one-note character—whether it’s the Tough Girl or this or that. It’s much more complicated and there’s such a beauty in that. I love roles like that.”
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