Let’s take a moment to appreciate the wonder that is Nicolas Cage.
An Oscar-winner for Leaving Las Vegas, Cage has always been prolific, starring in movies that span a dizzying array of genres, from surrealist comedies such as Adaptation to bona fide blockbusters like Con Air and Face/Off.
If we’re being honest, not all of these have been winners, but, through the good and the bad, this actor has always been inimitably, irrepressibly Nic Cage.
This fact was satirised brilliantly in the 2022 masterpiece, The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent, which is a high-water mark in Cage’s late-career resurgence.
Not that he ever went anywhere, but these past few years have been hectic even by his standards, with roles, big and small, in nearly 30 films since 2018, including The Surfer, which was shot right here in WA and had its world premiere in Cannes this year.
As always with Cage, quantity doesn’t equal quality, and for every Pig there’s a stinker like Renfield.
But what he’s done in the new horror film Longlegs is something new — he isn’t Nic Cage.
Unrecognisable in facial prosthetics and affectations inspired by 1970s glam rocker Marc Bolan, Cage disappears into the titular role of a satanic serial killer in a way we’ve rarely seen in his long career in Hollywood.
And it’s absolutely amazing.
Set in the 1990s, the latest film from director Osgood Perkins (aka the actor who played Dorky David in Legally Blonde) is a haunting tale of an FBI agent with clairvoyant abilities, on the hunt for the person responsible for the murders of entire families.
With It Follows star Maika Monroe cast as said agent, the dread slowly builds as she gets closer to solving the case.
At times it gives Silence Of The Lambs vibes, only with a more supernatural bent, but the key difference here is the central performance, and in that regard Monroe doesn’t hold a candle to the great Jodie Foster.
In fact, Monroe’s acting appears restricted to channelling Kristen Stewart’s trademark pained, pursed-lip grimace.
The plot also unravels if scrutinised too closely, and the conclusion serves to highlight the film’s tendency to preference style over substance.
Make no mistake, though, the style is very impressive.
The Bolan inspo stretches to repeated T. Rex references in the film, and the cinematography is very special indeed.
No wonder the film had a bonkers opening weekend in the US – its $33.6 million more than doubled the box office take of the Channing Tatum and Scarlett Johansson’s rom-com, Fly Me To The Moon, which cost ten times more to make.
Thanks to an unmissable Cage performance, Longlegs has earned its place among other indie horror hits, such as The Blair Witch Project, Saw and Paranormal Activity.
3 Stars
Starring: Maika Monroe, Nicolas Cage, Alicia Witt, Kiernan Shipka
Rating: MA15+
In cinemas: Now