Longlegs (2024)

 So here's the solution to the murders in this movie: in exchange for not killing her daughter, Nicolas Cage's Satanist character got the FBI agent protagonist's mother to agree to go along with his evil plans: specifically, dressed as a nun, she visits families and gives them giant, creepy-looking dolls ("a gift from the church," she unhelpfully explains).  Then these dolls have a malign influence that causes them to start murdering one another.  For reasons too dumb to go into, these murder sprees all take place on or around the birthdays of the children.  So in the final scene of the movie (I can't bring myself to call it a "climax") our FBI agent protagonist goes to her boss's daughter's birthday party, and oh no, there's her mom, and there's the giant creepy doll!  Oh noes!  And they're all already acting all fucked up and shit so we know it's on.  FBI agent protagonist (if you expect me to remember anyone's name here, you can keep expecting) is pleading to no avail with her mother to stop it, while the boss says to his wife, hey, let's go into the kitchen, and CUT the cake.  CUT CUT CUT.  And it is extremely obvious that he is going to stab her to death with a kitchen knife, and you think, hey, FBI agent lady, maybe you should, I don't know, intervene or something?  I mean, I don't want to tell you how to do your job, but...?  But no!  She keeps arguing with her mom as we hear in the background the sounds of a knife being drawn and then stabbing noises, and you think: is this schlocky-ass horror movie supposed to be funny?  Because this scene isn't...not funny.  And I did briefly entertain the possibility that some things in this movie are supposed to be dark jokes.  There are a handful of other moments, where you think, hey movie, are you taking the piss?  Just enough to make you consider the idea, but far too few humor was the goal, though I don't think it was, it didn't work, and really, who are we kidding?  All the positive reviews see it as a straightforward horror film.

There's this one scene early on where FBIap is trying to figure out these secret notes written by Cage's character in, I guess, Satanic script.  These murders have been going on for twenty-some years, but apparently she no one else was able to do what she did, until she does it super-easily (in fairness, if that's the right word, there is some vague suggestion later on that FBIap may be psychic--yes, that's as dumb as it sounds--to try to semi-justify some of the goofier shit here, but it's really never much of a thing).  Then, she makes a chart of the days the murders happened (I said this was too dumb to go into, but that's what you GET for trusting me), and consulting a helpful reference book called A Guide to the Nine Circles of Hell, which she has just lying around (as you do), she figures out that they're meant to spell out some sort of Satanic sigil.  Well...that's that solved then, I guess.  

Seriously, how does this extremely terrible movie currently have a rating of eighty-six on rottentomatoes?  I will grant you that seeing Cage Caging it up in full-on camp mode will never not be entertaining, but one other thing it won't ever be is scary.  It WILL be extremely tonally weird, though, at least here.  And forget these big idiotic plot twists; the regular, everyday dialogue is bad enough.  All the characters are just total cyphers, there as the plot necessitates, the whole thing really, really uninvolving.  This is a super-weird comparison, but in some ways it reminded me of some of the weaker late-stage Gottfredson/Walsh Mickey Mouse stories, where there's no sense of there being any kind of logic and Mickey's just kind of staggering around in a vacuum (h/t to David Gerstein for that phrasing).

I'll grant that the movie does have a handful of striking images.  But it really is dogshit.  Very occasional moments of accidental levity do not, on the whole, make it any less boring and amateurish.  I rarely if ever have this reaction to bad movies, but this one actually made me angry.  How the fuck do you think it's acceptable to take people's money for this?  Blah.