Reely Bernie Horror Fest: Longlegs (2024)

I’m late to the party with this one, but in hindsight, staying home would’ve been the better choice. 

Longlegs offers little beyond a thin plot: a young, inexperienced female FBI agent—clearly echoing Silence of the Lambs—is on the trail of a bizarre serial killer. That’s the whole premise.

If you took every horror gimmick imaginable—serial killers, possessed dolls, over-the-top performances, cryptic symbol decoding, and obnoxious jump cuts paired with blaring sound effects—and threw them at a wall, you’d have this film. (Oh, and don’t forget to add the Prince of Darkness in there too.)

The current wave of style-over-substance horror (Midsommar, The Substance, Sinners, etc.) may thrill some, but it often trades real suspense for sensory overload—and this one’s no exception. The payoff? Singed brain cells.

Nicolas Cage leans so much into his “weirdo” persona that the result feels like parody. Unintentionally funny, sure—but not in a good way. Maika Monroe, whom I admired in It Follows and Watcher, is so muted here that Jodie Foster’s Clarice Starling seems like Madonna with a magnum by comparison.

The only thing I actually liked was the atmosphere. The moody, overcast Oregon backdrop and dark, wood-paneled interiors create an effectively claustrophobic tone. But a foreboding setting can only carry a film so far. After 30 minutes, you realize you’re trapped in a rinse-and-repeat cycle of: “Don’t open that door—it’s Nic Cage being a freak again.”

Longlegs (2024) *