A true aesthete of the genre, Oz Perkins returns with a new thriller, Longlegs, in cinemas July 10, 2024. As usual, the American director unveils an arty work that, with its dark, heavy atmosphere and mystical flight, sent shivers down ourspines.
Maika Monroe (not seen much since It Follows) plays Lee Harker, a talented FBI agent newly recruited by the government agency to investigate a serial killer who has been on the loose since 1975. His modus operandi is most peculiar: he is believed to be able to convince fathers to massacre all their family members. Eleven have already perished inagony, but the killer remains elusive. The investigation quickly veers towards theoccult as links are forged between the killer and the investigator.
From the very first scene (as brilliant as it is terrifying), set to the music of T-Rex, Oz Perkins lays the foundations for a film packed with references, with grainy textures and vivid zooms that pay homage to 70s horror cinema. A little blonde girl is approached in her garden by a pale-faced, bloated but strangely feminine man(Nicolas Cage, who gleefully capers in this most excessive of roles).
Oz Perkins retains this Halloween atmosphere in all the flashback scenes , in particular a shot filmed from the little girl's eyes that recalls the iconic POV shot of Michael Myers as a child. But thepolice investigation, staged in a much more contemporary way, is more reminiscent of Fincher'sZodiac in its colorimetry and the way it films the investigative work.
Maika Monroe finds herself trapped in American suburbs seemingly devoid of people, and as in the David Robert Mitchell film in which she was first discovered by the general public, much of theanguish is woven into the background of the image, in wide shots and short focal lengths. Longlegs may be a thriller, but it makes the most of real horror, evenelevated horror ( jumpscares and extensive sound work) to create a unique atmosphere that will leave some people with a visceral chill.
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