Film review: Longlegs is a superior serial killer thriller with elements of the occult

Nicolas Cage is as physically preposterous as he is psychologically unsettling as the Satan-worshipping Longlegs

Maika Monroe stars in Longlegs.

• Longlegs
• ★★★★☆
• Cinematic release

Longlegs (16s) stars Maika Monroe as Lee Harker, an FBI agent investigating a bizarre serial killer who seems to possess the uncanny ability to persuade families to kill themselves.

But as the killer, who signs his coded, taunting notes ‘Longlegs’ (Nicolas Cage), begins to target Lee herself, he appears to have made his first mistake, because the highly intuitive Lee has the capacity to get under the skin of Longlegs’ homicidal mania. 

Written and directed by Oz Perkins, Longlegs opens as a superior serial killer thriller, blending elements of the occult into this staple of the crime genre and investing the most prosaic-looking of suburban landscapes with a brooding sense of supernatural horror.

Monroe is terrific as the socially awkward, introspective investigator, while Cage is as physically preposterous as he is psychologically unsettling as the Satan-worshipping Longlegs. 

The final stages grow increasingly implausible as Perkins sets out Longlegs’ motivations and methodology. Even so, the deeply affecting quality of the first hour will remain with you after the credits roll.