Review
Some movies unsettle you with loud shocks, sudden violence, or over-the-top gore. This one does it by never letting you feel safe for even a second. From the opening shot, there’s this thick, smothering unease that settles in and refuses to leave. You can’t quite name what’s wrong, but you feel it in every frame. It’s the silence that lingers too long, the rooms that feel too empty, the way the air itself seems tainted. Longlegs doesn’t just want to scare you—it wants to infect you. And it succeeds.
The atmosphere is the main weapon here. Every scene feels stretched just a little too thin, like something is about to break, but the movie holds it just out of reach. You’re constantly waiting for the snap, and when it finally comes, it doesn’t feel like release—it feels like confirmation of the dread you’ve been carrying the whole time. That’s what makes the film work so well: it doesn’t burn itself out with easy scares. It keeps its grip on you by making sure you never stop anticipating something worse.
The procedural framing is almost a trick. On paper, this is about an investigation—agents piecing together evidence, trying to get ahead of a killer. But the details of the case, the mechanics of the investigation, none of that really matters. The real story is the atmosphere, the suffocating sense of inevitability. You’re not here for answers. You’re here to watch dread coil tighter and tighter until it feels unbearable. That choice makes it less of a detective story and more of a nightmare disguised as one.
And then there’s Nicolas Cage. His performance here is something else entirely. Normally when actors go big, it feels showy, like they’re trying to draw attention to themselves. Cage in this role feels the opposite. He doesn’t play a person—he plays a contagion. Every movement is off, every line is twisted into something grotesque. The makeup, the voice, the physicality—it all pushes him beyond “eccentric” and into the realm of something alien. He doesn’t feel like a man you can catch. He feels like a curse you can’t shake. It’s unhinged, it’s horrifying, and it’s exactly what the movie needs.
What’s impressive is how much restraint the film shows around that performance. It doesn’t flood the story with Cage, doesn’t let him dominate every frame. It doles him out in just the right measure, so that every appearance lands like contamination. By the time he’s fully in focus, you’re already sick with dread. He doesn’t need to do much—his presence is enough.
The ending is maybe the only place where the film stumbles. It’s not bad, not by a long shot, but after so much tension, you want the finale to crush you. Instead, it lands just a little softer than it could have. It still works—it still leaves you reeling—but there’s a nagging feeling that the film almost, almost had one more level to unlock. Even so, when the mood has already burrowed this deep, the slight dip doesn’t undo the experience.
What sticks with you afterward isn’t the specifics of the case or even the kills. It’s the infection of it all—the way it makes you feel like the movie is still watching you after it ends. Like something followed you out of the theater and sat down in the corner of your room. That’s rare, and that’s what makes it effective. The flaws don’t matter when the vibe is this potent. By the time the credits roll, you’re not analyzing the story—you’re just sitting there with your skin crawling. And for me, that impact is worth a 4.5/5.