Longlegs

 Ten families butchered over two decades, each a clear case of the one of the parents snapping and killing the rest. But here's the thing: in each one of the murder scenes there's a letter written in code, signed as LONGLEGS.

 FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe), a cripplingly shy and socially awkward FBI agent, is assigned to the case. Her gregarious superior (Blair Underwood), hopes her unnatural intuition can help shed some light when Longlegs strikes again.

 His hopes prove founded: with a little help from an unexpected Longlegs letter and a hilariously '70s guide to satanism, Agent Harker cracks the code and finds a new element to the murders that only muddles things further... unless you're willing (as Harker is) to indulge in supernatural explanations.

 Longlegs is the latest film from writer/director Osgood Perkins, one of the most fiercely idiosyncratic  genre directors working in horror today - and for better and for worse, this movie is an excellent showcase for his talents. It's a deeply grim, unsettling film, a creepy exercise in growing ambient dread that's expertly ratcheted up until it threatens to drown everything. The direction is precise and the shots often starkly beautiful, with a cohesive palette that alternates between deep earthy colours and chilly bone-white tableaus. Just from a visual and aural standpoint, the film is a marvel.

 But the script tries to juggle a little too much, and some of the elements are a little suspect. Chief amongst them Longlegs himself, Nicholas Cage in a fright wig and grotesque pancake makeup - Cage's talents are numerous, but there's a little miscalculation to how much weirdness he's allowed to indulge in here, his histrionics effectively creepy but too ridiculous for the film's otherwise tightly controlled tone. I think I get what Perkins and Cage were going for (a screeching injection of white noise into the film's more subdued static drone),  but it didn't really work for me.

 I did like the fact that the killer's into T. Rex and Lou Reed. Giving heavy metal a little time off to relax. And Cage does seem to be having a blast.

 Equally problematic is that the film is a little bit disjointed. Each one of the fairly well worn horror and serial killer movie tropes it brings into play are immaculately well crafted, but they end up clashing against each other once it becomes clear how they're supposed to slot in together. The film shines in its first two acts, and while there's a lot to like in the last one, it is more than a little bit clunky and nonsensical.

 Another problem is the film's stylish marketing campaign, a beautifully put together series of mysterious, gorgeously edited trailers which stands in contrast to the terrible, crass job trailers have been doing to promote their respective films for a couple of decades now. It's a petty thing to hold against the movie, not to mention my own damn fault - the slight disappointment of being overhyped - but there you go. For what it's worth, the film was never misrepresented by the trailers, and I suspect they'll prove influential.
 Oh, and please ignore any comparisons to Silence of the Lambs; That type of hyperbole will never do a movie any favours.

 For all my reservations and the time I've spent on them, I really like this movie. It's of a piece with other jagged, retro-tinged mood pieces, artifacts from a 70s experimental horror subgenre that never was. Osgood Perkins and his crew have made something that's pretty special, and I hope its success allows the director to pursue his batshit, uncommercial vision as far as he's willing to take it.