Starring Nicolas Cage as a satanist mass assassin, Longlegs has been known as “the scariest movie of the last decade”. Here is why, regardless of its snowy setting, it is good summer time programming.
I am relieved to report that I did not have nightmares after I watched Longlegs, however I might see why it may be this 12 months’s most talked-about “elevated horror” movie, ie a horror movie that does not depend on soar scares, however on a pervasive air of dread and disorientation. Its forged and crew are a key issue. The movie’s writer-director is a horror-fan favorite, and he additionally occurs to be the son of the star of Psycho, Anthony Perkins. Its star, Maika Monroe, has been related to high-quality spookiness ever since she appeared in two 2014 movies, It Follows and The Visitor. And her co-star, Nicolas Cage, isn’t happier than when he’s being the weirdest actor in US cinema.
Monroe stars as Lee Harker, an earnest, anti-social FBI agent whose profession is getting underway within the Nineteen Nineties – sure, Jodie Foster’s Clarice Starling in Silence Of The Lambs is clearly an affect. Her hunches are so dependable that she might have psychic powers – and within the uncanny netherworld of Longlegs, psychic powers aren’t unheard-of – so she is seconded to research a satanist (Cage) who has slaughtered 10 households over a 30-year interval. Cryptic notes have been discovered on the scene of each crime, however it all the time appeared as if the daddy / husband of every household had murdered his spouse and kids, after which killed himself. The one rational rationalization is that the satanist by some means persuaded different males to do his killing for him. Or, as Harper’s boss (Blair Underwood) places it, “He murders them, however not in particular person.”
If that weren’t sinister sufficient, the entire lightbulbs within the movie appear to have the bottom potential wattage, and its color palette is dominated by shades of brown – sure, Seven is one other huge affect. And Cage, preening and cackling whereas caked in white make-up, reveals us what he would have performed if he’d been forged as the Joker in The Darkish Knight. Longlegs can also be so snowy and wintry that it might probably’t be lengthy earlier than followers are arguing on social media over whether or not it counts as a Christmas movie.
The artwork of counterprogramming
All of this raises the query of why it’s being launched in the midst of summer time. Why is a skin-crawling serial-killer thriller being requested to compete with the crowd-pleasing, megabudget likes of Twisters and Deadpool & Wolverine? The reply is that it is a crafty instance of counterprogramming – that’s, the follow of releasing a movie across the similar time as one other, higher-profile movie of a starkly completely different style. The concept is that numerous folks will go to the cinema over the vacations, however a minimum of a few of these folks will fancy an alternative choice to whichever blockbuster is hogging many of the screens of their native multiplex.
What has typically occurred historically is {that a} deafeningly noisy motion epic has been touted as the largest movie of the summer time, so distributors have sneaked out a smaller-scale romantic comedy for anybody craving some mild reduction. When Star Wars – Episode I: The Phantom Menace got here out in Might 1999, many cinemagoers have been blissful to pop to Notting Hill as an alternative. When The Darkish Knight shrouded Batman in doom and gloom in July 2008, the sunny escapism of Mamma Mia! made a refreshing change. Armageddon and Saving Non-public Ryan have been each launched in July 1998, so it is no marvel that audiences needed to regular their nerves with There’s One thing About Mary.
This type of counterprogramming pale over the previous decade, as Hollywood largely gave up on rom-coms, however final 12 months it got here again with a bang. Just a few months after Common introduced that Oppenheimer can be launched on 21 July, Warner Bros introduced that they have been releasing Barbie on the identical day. It nearly felt like a parody of counterprogramming: a furrow-browed Christopher Nolan drama concerning the atomic bomb versus a vivid pink Greta Gerwig comedy a few trend doll. However the absurd distinction between the 2 movies turned out to be so irresistible that tens of millions of us opted to see them each. 2023 turned the 12 months of Barbenheimer.
This summer time, counterprogramming has been remodeled once more. Hollywood romantic comedies similar to A Household Affair and The Thought of You might have been consigned to streaming providers, and there are comparatively few main blockbusters on the schedule – only one Marvel movie, nothing from DC, no new instalment of Star Wars, Jurassic Park or Mission: Not possible. That has left the best way clear for a unique number of low-budget alternate options. Moderately than mild and feelgood movies, we’re getting darkish and feelbad movies, each scarier and grislier than the final. We have already had Kill (bone-snapping violence aboard an Indian prepare) and MaXXXine (bloody mayhem in Eighties Los Angeles), and earlier than the summer time is out, we are able to see Lure (serial killer at a pop live performance), Blink Twice (girls trapped on a non-public island), Communicate No Evil (murderous couple preying on holiday-makers) – and, in fact, Longlegs.
In impact, these movies are anti-blockbusters. They are not bursting with explosions and CGI, they usually do not have sweeping orchestral scores and costly advert campaigns, however they do supply the kind of popcorn-dropping pleasure that’s greatest skilled in a cinema surrounded by different folks. In the event that they’re profitable sufficient, horror motion pictures might develop into the brand new summer time blockbusters, whereas superhero motion pictures develop into the counterprogramming alternate options.
Longlegs is launched in US and UK cinemas on 12 July.