Too. Many. Lazy. Jump scares.
Longlegs tells the story of an FBI agent attempting to catch a horrific serial killer who has been murdering family's for over a decade. We follow two FBI agents who are attempting to put the clues together,
I believe the hype train got moving on this rather average film too hard and it does not deliver what last years horror darling "Talk to Me" did.
It obviously isn't all bad. I love Nick Cage and it's one of those movies that I am thrilled he got to do. I had the thought of "there is a finite number of Nick Cage performances left" and this felt like a good use of his talent. Maika Moneroe and Blair Underwood have good chemistry as the lead and her boss.
This film is shot absolutely beautifully. The shots are well thought out. Color is used well , and technically it's very well done . I feel like this is causing a lot of people to significantly overrated this film because the ol' "well I don't want to say I didn't get it!" Because everything else about it seems like things you learn in film school to NOT do.
The film uses many lazy, non sensical jump scares throughout. Almost like they didn't think the film was scary enough so they went back through and added a bunch to make it feel less slow? It just didn't need it and it's a big negative to me.
The plot conveniences are many, I won't get into spoilers but the tagline should probably be "what are the odds?" I always expect that in movies-obviously, but this is so easy to predict once you catch on . There is some lazy narration and exposition dumps that aren't very clever and seem blunt and fall flat, whereas a more seasoned director can work in those things throughout the film.,
So overall , Longlegs combines great cinematography with film school 101 fails in the script that ultimately will scare the crap out of you... but isn't a compelling enough story to warrant comparisons to the genre greats.
I'd watch maybe on streaming but this was not a must watch. 6/10.
I believe the hype train got moving on this rather average film too hard and it does not deliver what last years horror darling "Talk to Me" did.
It obviously isn't all bad. I love Nick Cage and it's one of those movies that I am thrilled he got to do. I had the thought of "there is a finite number of Nick Cage performances left" and this felt like a good use of his talent. Maika Moneroe and Blair Underwood have good chemistry as the lead and her boss.
This film is shot absolutely beautifully. The shots are well thought out. Color is used well , and technically it's very well done . I feel like this is causing a lot of people to significantly overrated this film because the ol' "well I don't want to say I didn't get it!" Because everything else about it seems like things you learn in film school to NOT do.
The film uses many lazy, non sensical jump scares throughout. Almost like they didn't think the film was scary enough so they went back through and added a bunch to make it feel less slow? It just didn't need it and it's a big negative to me.
The plot conveniences are many, I won't get into spoilers but the tagline should probably be "what are the odds?" I always expect that in movies-obviously, but this is so easy to predict once you catch on . There is some lazy narration and exposition dumps that aren't very clever and seem blunt and fall flat, whereas a more seasoned director can work in those things throughout the film.,
So overall , Longlegs combines great cinematography with film school 101 fails in the script that ultimately will scare the crap out of you... but isn't a compelling enough story to warrant comparisons to the genre greats.
I'd watch maybe on streaming but this was not a must watch. 6/10.
- Jblum5
- Jul 11, 2024