Review Double Feature: Longlegs and MaXXXine

Longlegs Score: 2/4 MaXXXine Score: 3/4

Osgood Perkins’ Longlegs opens with a young girl having an outside encounter with a figure played by Nicolas Cage; I say “figure” because we initially don’t see all of him, just an odd angle where we can make out his mouth and the unsettling, high pitched tone of his voice. It establishes a feeling of dread that Perkins tightly wraps around the film and doesn’t let loose until the end credits. I’ve seen scarier movies than Longlegs but few that made me more uncomfortable in the way that it maintains a feeling of danger and discomfort from start to finish.

Maika Monroe (the lead of It Follows) stars as FBI Agent Lee Harker, whose pursuit of the title character forces her to remember buried childhood trauma and conceal from her boss (played by Blair Underwood) how she has been receiving correspondence from the vile murder suspect she’s pursuing.

Monroe’s performance is good, though it’s a tricky one to embrace until the film is over- there’s a lot that Harker (yes, an overt Dracula reference) is hiding not only from her superior officer but also from us. Far more impressive is Alicia Witt, unrecognizable and Oscar worthy as Harker’s isolated and always-worried mother. Then there’s Cage, whose performance as Longlegs is genuinely scary, but only to a point: when we see and hear the character from either a distance or view from an obscured vantage point, the effect is petrifying. Truly, Cage has never given a performance like this before. On the other hand, when we get a clear look at him in the late going, we not only see some familiar tics, but Perkins gives Cage a few showy moments that should have been edited out. Cage makes some grandstanding choices that distract not only from how good he is here but occasionally threaten to veer this into camp.

Likewise, the third act of Longlegs overextends its sinister welcome, as it provides a clearcut explanation for the surreal nature of the plot. Less is truly more here; whereas Perkins’ equally disturbing The Blackcoat’s Daughter (2015) needed an explanation unraveling the knots in its twisty and twisted tale, Longlegs is least effective when it lays out the specific how and why of the story.

Taken literally and to describe this in a glib and limited way, Longlegs is like The Silence of the Lambs directed by David Lynch. Yet, whereas Lynch rarely offers interpretation to his cinematic nightmares, Perkins has a final scene that seems a tad forced (likewise, the final line and closing image). Nevertheless, this is the first movie in a long time to make me lose sleep and keep the light on once I got home. It’s too early to tell if repeat viewings will reveal this to be better than I imagined or if the control of tone can be attributed to pretentiousness.

Longlegs is devious, impressive in its commitment to making its audience feel unsafe and no fun whatsoever to experience. It’s a horror movie, so “fun” may not be a factor whatsoever, but that’s a major distinction for that film, whereas “fun” is a huge part of why I enjoyed Ti West’s MaXXXine so much.

Mia Goth stars as Maxine, an adult film actress aiming to break into the mainstream. A successful audition for a B-horror film leads to Maxine impressing a tough-as-nails director (played by Elizabeth Debicki), who warns Maxine that she needs to be reliable and ready for this potential big shot. Maxine has all sorts of problems working against her: in addition to being an adult film actress in scuzzy 1980’s Hollywood and harboring a cocaine habit, she is also being pursued by a sleazy detective (played by a fantastic Kevin Bacon) and is in the same circle as a serial killer.

MaXXXine is the third film in an unexpected, crude and enjoyable trilogy from West, which started with the pretty good Tobe Hooper tribute X (2022), then followed up with the extraordinary prequel Pearl (also 2022). Goth’s performance in Pearl was one of the best of its year, as was the film itself. MaXXXine isn’t an exploration of innocence lost masquerading as a horror movie art film like Pearl, though it might be something far more accessible and fun for genre fans. I mean this as the highest compliment: MaXXXine feels like the third feature in the wonderful Grindhouse (2007), as West has somehow made both an uncanny throwback and a no-nonsense B-movie with teeth that both Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino would likely have embraced as part of their collective.

I wish the third act of MaXXXine didn’t offer such an obvious send-up of Hollywood, somehow both ripe commentary on privileged protection and an easy joke on what we all suspect about the famous people who live next to the HOLLYWOOD sign.

Yet, if the accomplished, impressive X is overrated and Pearl is a jaw dropping surprise that has yet to fully establish the cult following it deserves, then MaXXXine is the most accessible and, despite being the third one out, mostly works as a standalone and will likely pull in genre buffs who need to get caught up on West’s sleeper trilogy.

West’s debut, The House of the Devil (2009) has a terrific start and a hall-of-fame use of The Fixx’s One Thing Leads to Another but a third act that delivers on genre expectations but still fumbles. All his films have this problem, though his subsequent The Innkeepers (2011) is wonderful and The Sacrament (2013) is a riveting, better-than-expected example of the overdone found footage genre. Pearl may go down as his masterpiece (and it deserves that distinction- seriously, check it out if you haven’t seen it yet) but MaXXXine, the tail end of what will likely be referred to as his “X Trilogy,” is another standout.

If you’re nostalgic for the days of movies from New World, Cannon Films, New Line or an even lesser-known studio that puts out glorious, unapologetically sleazy and clever thrillers, then MaXXXine will feel like an escapee from a sticky-floored, squeaky seat grindhouse palace.

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Barry Wurst

Barry Wurst II is a senior editor & film critic at MAUIWatch. He writes film reviews for a local Maui publication and taught film classes at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs (UCCS). Wurst also co-hosted podcasts for Screengeeks.com and has been published in Bright Lights Film Journal and in other film-related websites. He is currently featured in the new MAUIWatch Podcast- The NERDWatch.

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