‘Longlegs:’ What to know about the movie that has horror fans loving being afraid
By Lisa Respers France, CNN
(CNN) — “Longlegs” isn’t even in theaters yet, but it’s already scaring up excitement.
Early reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic show box office promise for the horror thriller set to open this weekend.
For those who don’t find real life frightening enough, here’s what to know about the movie:
The cast
Nicolas Cage, “It Follows” star Maika Monroe, Alicia Witt, Kiernan Shipka and Blair Underwood are some of the top names in the cast.
Cage alone is a huge draw no matter how big his role is in any film.
The plot
Monroe stars as new FBI Agent Lee Harker who must dive into the occult in order to solve the case of a serial killer.
In the midst of the investigation, Harker learns of a personal connection to the killer. She must race against time before another victim or victims lose their lives.
The combination of a serial murderer on the loose and the satanic will likely be enough to keep audiences on the edge of their seats.
What the critics are saying
Die-hard horror fans pushed an early score to 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, before it dropped a bit.
Variety’s Peter Debruge had high praise for both writer-director Osgood Perkins – who is the son of “Psycho” star Anthony Perkins – and Cage.
“How many horror movies can claim to hijack your subconscious?” Debruge writes. “With Longlegs, writer-director Osgood Perkins delivers the kind of payoff we sought out as kids, daring ourselves to watch films about boogeymen that made us want to sleep with the lights on.”
David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter writes that the movie “acknowledges a debt to The Silence of the Lambs in its chronicle of a young female rookie agent pulled into the FBI manhunt for a killer wiping out entire families.”
“But the movie is also its own freaky trip, a darkly disturbing experience pulsing with an evil that’s unrelenting in its subcutaneous creepiness,” he writes.
Other critics were less enthused.
Matt Cipolla of The Film Stage writes, “By living and dying on tame procedural, Longlegs fails to evoke any strong emotion. Perhaps that’s partially by design: Perkins seems intent, if not particularly careful, to emulate his protagonist in style and form.”
When can you see it
“Longlegs” hits theaters on Friday.
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