Hail, Satan!

Lee, a young FBI agent with paranormal abilities, must handle a series of murders where family men massacre their families and then commit suicide. It seems that someone outside the family is pushing these men to commit such acts. Another typical American thriller/horror film that starts well but loses momentum with predictable script choices, where the paranormal, set in a highly realistic context, detracts from the story’s strength. In hunting down the source of this evil, Lee is also forced to confront her own darkness, eventually discovering that she had encountered Longlegs as a child—the eerie, Satan-worshiping man who drives fathers to annihilate their families. The evil is not external to Lee; it’s part of her, with her mother having more than one link to Longlegs and perhaps even Lee herself. But thankfully, Perkins doesn’t go too far in explaining their connection.

"Longlegs" works as an essay on building tension. It’s intriguing in how it uses cinematography to instill fear. However, the mystery’s resolution is mundane, overly explained, and at times, laughable. This results in an unbalanced film—lean and stark in the first half, yet redundant and filled with commercial thriller mechanics in the second. The technical aspect is excellent: the cinematography is icy in outdoor scenes and those featuring Longlegs, contrasting sharply with the warmer tones in Lee’s home, which should feel safe but is, in reality, threatened by evil. Perkins experiments with film formats, switching between 4:3 and standard widescreen, positioning the camera at children’s eye level to make everything around them feel more menacing. The long shots of barren, snow-covered exteriors are ominously threatening. When Lee is shot frontally, she’s never centered in the frame; there’s always too much space above her head, or she’s captured from a distance, evoking the unsettling sense that Longlegs could appear behind her. Lee is smaller than the evil that surrounds and consumes her. The viewer's eye anxiously searches for the horror, but the director withholds it, creating a palpable unease through the absence of clear visuals. The script doesn’t match the quality of the direction, creating an imbalance that makes the film feel hybrid. A cunning feature that lacks the courage to be as radically ambiguous as David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, sadly weighed down by evident commercial ambitions. The sound design is superb; the musical score gives you chills, as do the sudden sound bursts. The commentary on the family unit as an unsafe space, while not original, is unsettling. The protagonist's family is unsafe, as was Longlegs’ family, as are the families that are slaughtered.

Visions, snakes, triangles, crosses, dolls, psychotic mothers or mothers haunted by evil, references to rock music (especially Lou Reed). Charles Manson and the Book of Revelation from the New Testament are referenced. The character of Longlegs embodies Manson, Reed, and many glam rock and punk artists; his aesthetic makes him ambiguous—a man with some feminine features, as evil has no definite sexual identity. The lead’s restrained acting is contrasted with the exaggerated performances of Nicholas Cage and Alicia Witt (the latter seems too young to portray Lee’s mother). Comparisons to the excellent The Silence of the Lambs only hold up in terms of the use of space, both physical and mental. However, the compactness of Demme's screenplay, as well as its exploration of earthly, not supernatural evil, puts it well above Perkins’ work.

"And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on its horns, and on each head a blasphemous name. The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority. One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast. People worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshiped the beast and asked, 'Who is like the beast? Who can wage war against it?' The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise its authority for forty-two months. It opened its mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven. It was given power to wage war against God’s holy people and to conquer them. And it was given authority over every tribe, people, language, and nation. All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world.

Whoever has ears, let them hear. 'If anyone is to go into captivity, into captivity they will go. If anyone is to be killed with the sword, with the sword they will be killed.' This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of God’s people. Then I saw a second beast, coming out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon. It exercised all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed. And it performed great signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to the earth in full view of the people. Because of the signs it was given power to perform on behalf of the first beast, it deceived the inhabitants of the earth. It ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. That number is 666."(Revelation 13, Book of Revelation, New Testament)

12-Nov-2024 by Emanuele