Longlegs

4★

Longlegs feels like finding a VHS tape in your attic that absolutely should not exist.

For most of its runtime, I was less scared by what was happening and more unsettled by the feeling that something was fundamentally wrong with the air inside the movie. Every room feels contaminated. Every conversation sounds like it’s being overheard by something invisible standing just outside the frame.

What really worked for me was the atmosphere. Osgood Perkins directs like he’s trying to recreate a nightmare from memory, where details are missing but the dread remains perfectly intact. The film is obsessed with empty spaces, silence, and the sensation that evil isn’t chasing you—it’s already waiting where you’re headed.

And then there’s Nicolas Cage. I don’t even know if “performance” is the right word. He exists in the movie the way a mold stain exists on a wall. Every time he appeared, the film somehow became both more ridiculous and more terrifying. It’s a balancing act that should not work, yet somehow does.

My biggest issue is that the mystery is more compelling than the answers. The first two-thirds had me completely locked in, piecing together clues and searching every corner of the frame. Once the film starts revealing its hand, some of that hypnotic uncertainty evaporates. The questions lingered with me longer than the explanations.

Still, I can’t stop thinking about it. Not because it scared me while I was watching it, but because it followed me home afterward. The best horror movies leave fingerprints on your brain. Longlegs leaves a smudge.

I watched it at night and spent the next hour checking dark hallways for absolutely no reason.