I don't necessarily regret paying to see it. It was cheap. If I had paid $20 a ticket I probably would not have been happy.

I think there's better movies out right now. If you go in with the right expectations (for example, that it isn't horror at all but a basic thriller with some weird Satan stuff crammed in at the last minute) you probably won't be too disappointed.

That said, I would have rather seen inside out 2 a second time with my kids than watch this.

I'll say this…

The opening tease, where we get the briefest glimpse of Cage as Longlegs, was legit disturbing. To the point where I was thinking holy crap, all those people saying ridiculous things like "Longlegs is evil incarnate and feels as if it were crafted by Satan himself" might actually be right. Combined with the theater being packed, and the buzz in the air, I was even wondering if I should make it a habit of seeing more horror movies in the theater.

Also, the first third to half of the movie is effectively creepy, weird, unsettling, etc. There's a real sense of dread, the cinematography is fantastic, and on a technical level it was damn impressive. Not to mention, they do a really great job of teasing Cage just the right amount and obscuring his face in cool ways.

I was into it all for sure.

But man, around halfway through, for me, for whatever reason, the creepiness and the weirdness slowly went from effective to relentlessly over the top, almost comically so. After a while, it just felt like it was trying sooooo incredibly hard to be like, "Isn't this the creepiest, most depressing, most evil **** ever??? Isn't it distuuuuurbing???" Then, once Cage as Longlegs is fully revealed, and the conceit makes itself known, I couldn't believe THAT was the plot, while Longlegs himself ultimately boils down to Cage being his usual eccentric self, except under heavy makeup. I don't know what I was expecting, but what we ultimately got just didn't work for me at all, and I couldn't take it remotely seriously from the third act on.

I went from thinking maybe the "Longlegs is evil incarnate and feels as if it were crafted by Satan himself" bros were right to now getting angry every time I've seen one of their dumbass tweets since (one guy even said the two leads should be nominated for Oscars and that we'll be talking about this movie for decades to come, and I feel like I live on a completely different planet).

All that said… financially, I *do* want this movie to succeed, for the health of the theater industry, and it looks like it's going to do just that. The Thursday night numbers are coming in, and it's not only going to be big (relatively speaking), but will easily be Neon's highest grossing movie ever, which is pretty cool.

Overall, the audience tonight certainly seemed into it as well.

But personally, I'll be surprised if I see a movie in theaters I dislike more this year.

Yeah, its disappointing because we could use a really good Seven/Silence of the Lambs movie out right now.

And the social media scene around movies seems to just be really at a weird place right now, to me at least. Not like, "oh woke hollywood insulating itself!" or anything like that. I mean, just overly hyped reactions both ways, good or bad. And such dramatic swings between, "This movie is life changing!" to "This movie is the worst movie in the last 5 decades!"

I know this is probably just an old guy rant, but I miss the days where there wasn't 5,000+ so-called "movie critics" who got to see early screenings. I just get the impression most of these people are just regular couch-potatoes who write for some junk online outlet that gets about 500 unique views per month, but they somehow have weaseled their way into getting early screenings and feel like they must give overly dramatic reviews in order to stick out from the crowd.

Probably a pipe dream, but is there anyway studios start scaling back the early access to movies and just give legit media sources the early screenings?

me leaving #Longlegs, the “scariest” and “creepiest” movie of our decade pic.twitter.com/M3zkW6f9EY

— front row hoe™ (@DIRTY_B1T) July 12, 2024

That's solid TCCTS. And exactly right.

I think this movie broke my brain. I haven't been able to stop thinking all day about how stupid some of the stuff in it was.

Saw this movie with my Gen Z teenage sons and I also screened Silence of the Lambs for them a few days ago. I'm right in line with TCTTS review (great start…got really stale halfway in…overall meh) while the Gen Z morons think this is the greatest horror film ever and didn't really understand the silence of the lambs hype.

It should be apparent from the trailer it won't deliver. It doesn't. There are now horror movie production machines that churn out A24, Blumhouse, and Neon movies (this one is Neon), and while the production machines have their preferences--A24 being the artiest, Blumhouse the most gimmicky and lowbrow, and Neon in the middle--they all feature heavy cross-pollination, so it hardly matters.

Another bad sign: having already gotten movies about robot dolls that terrorize families, we get a trailer before Longlegs about an AI home automation device that terrorizes its family. Movie plots are now just elevator pitches with Diversity! casts.

Maika Monroe from It Follows shows up and while she does her job well, director Perkins is just another version of Rob Zombie: someone who watched a bunch of movies and really wants to make some, but all he's doing is remixing the movies he saw growing up. The 70s stylization gets out of hand from the first scenes, and it's just empty. This is the directorial tier below Tarantino, and it's not a great sign that we're already into the third generation of directors who want to make movies like the other movies they've seen.

This remix fantasia is another indication of stuck culture, the end result of people who have no life experiences beyond consuming entertainment, and no living culture to draw from. It was one thing to have George Lucas rip off Kurosawa samurai movies and John Ford Westerns, but now we have horror movie directors ripping off horror movie directors who ripped off other horror movie directors, and all so depressing.

Anyway, you'll spot the twist in Longlegs well before it arrives onscreen, even if you don't know there's a twist. And it leads nowhere. The movie doesn't make sense and doesn't care. It's a lot of frisson and fake-outs in search of a reason to exist. None are found here.

Let me lead with I was beyond excited for this movie. It was the most anticipated film that I've personally had in a while. Along with completely buying into the marketing campaign (kudos to them - but also **** them) - I absolutely love the lead actress and have seen just about every B movie she's been in. And I recently saw the director's first film The Blackcoat's Daughter and was fully expecting great things from him. That said...


This movie was ****ing awful

I tried so hard to like it. But it's terrible. It's a ridiculously stupid plot. The twists and major beats are shoehorned in hurriedly and make zero sense.

I agree with everything TC says and he describes it in a much better way than I could with his posts on this page. I would just add that - Nicolas Cage is so over the top in this but in the absolute worst way. The not showing his face at first is pretty creepy... but once he went full in - my entire theater was laughing hysterically at his scenes. It's so distracting that you're just clearly watching Nicolas Cage being an eccentric weirdo in a ton of bad makeup (and not great acting)... that it completely takes away from what should have been an amazing villain if done with a different actor, as well as the parts of the film that are genuinely disturbing.


Also, I mentioned the director's other movie The Blackcoat's Daughter. It's a very solid, creepy horror movie that I'd recommend... but he also took a lot of the best parts of that movie and just put them in this. I guess if it's your movie then it's not technically ripping anything off... But I certainly noticed it. I'll list them below in spoilers.

There is a demon/satan/familiar that possesses someone and makes them do things although it's not clear until the end.
The demon is subtly inserted into the background throughout the movie which you can easily miss. Longlegs had this several times as well and in both movies it's a cool technique
The characters receive a call from the demon/satan/whatever and it's pretty much the same thing
The director might actually be a devil worshipper because after two movies... it's a little eyebrow-raising


What a disappointment, and another scam job of marketing... but looks like it's going to pay off and I can't fault them for being good at their job.