Nicolas Cage’s ‘Repulsive, Discomforting’ Horror Movie Lands Perfect Rotten Tomatoes Score

Nicolas Cage’s brief blip in his recent run of career-best reviews seems to be well and truly over, as his new horror movie has debuted with a perfect Rotten Tomatoes score. Like many of Cage’s recent films, Longlegs is not a big blockbuster by any means, but it is another unexpected offering from the comeback king.

The NEON horror film has made a huge impact thanks to a clever and mysterious marketing campaign. So clever, in fact, that even now as the movie prepares to make its cinema debut, none of the trailers or marketing material has fully revealed Cage’s central serial killer. This is something that is pretty much unheard of in a time when films are well-known for releasing three or four trailers, each revealing more and more of the moments that should be saved for people to see for the first time in theaters.

Longlegs

Release Date

July 12, 2024

Runtime

1hr 41min

Studio

Automatik Entertainment, C2 Motion Picture Group, Neon

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Longlegs follows Maika Monroe’s character, FBI recruit Lee Harker, who is assigned to an unresolved case filled with occult clues leading to a twisted and chilling serial killer, played by an unrecognizable Cage. As Harker uncovers clues to the location of the killer, and his next potential victims, she attempts to bring him to justice before he can kill again.

The first reviews from Rotten Tomatoes critics have unanimously hailed the film as one of the darkest and unsettling films of the year, setting the film up to be not only another success for Cage, but for the low-budget horror genre that has been booming with originality over the last few years.

Both Dread Central‘s Mary Beth McAndrews and SlashFilm’s Bill Bria call the movie one of the scariest movies of the year and one of the best films of 2024 so far. IGN Movies’ Katie Rife adds that the film may feel familiar, but has just enough of Osgood Perkins’ surreal horror to allow it to stand out from the crowd.

Longlegs’ Killer Lurked for Years in Osgood Perkins’ Thoughts

Longlegs is one of the few movie releases that is going to arrive in cinemas with all of its secrets intact, having delivered a perfect marketing campaign of vague imagery and only the barest bones of a story. However, in the latest issue of SFX Magazine, Perkins shared some details about the inspiration and development of the movie and its central enigmatic character.

For those reviews making note of a familiarity about the movie, that is not something that will come as a surprise to Perkins. During his interview with the magazine, the director mentioned several prominent dark thrillers that Longlegs harks back to. He said:

“So it’s The Silence of the Lambs but it’s also kind of Zodiac, it’s sort of Seven. There’s kind of a pattern, a cipher, the sort of things you recognize. I’ll say the word Manson early on in the movie, do you know what I mean? You make it fair. But then you do your truth on the other side.”

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However, anyone thinking that Perkins is simply copying these iconic psychological thrillers couldn’t be more mistaken. As he explained in the interview, shadowy figure played by Cage in Longlegs is one that has been living with him for some time. He explained:

“All writers are the same. We all have a bin, a drawer, a pile of things that are free-floating. One thing that kept floating around was this person. My feeling was that he drove up to people’s houses, where their children had a birthday parties, and he brought something for them, like a little piano or a stuffed animal. He was an entertainer of some kind.

This guy kind of sort of sniffed around the edges of various projects. It’s like having a character in a recurring dream, right? It’s like tuning into a radio. This guy kept coming into my channel. You have to listen for the thing, and the thing says ‘Longlegs’ you say, ‘Okay, I agree,’ and then you wonder why it’s Longlegs. And that becomes the work of the creative process. So he came, this guy who did these things. He became someone a cop was chasing.”

Longlegs is certainly shaping up to be one of the most enigmatic and interesting movies of the summer. While it may not be about to compete with the likes of Deadpool & Wolverine for supremacy at the box office, there is little doubt that Longlegs is going to become one of the most talked about releases of 2024 and of Cage’s continued renaissance.