I really wanted to see this one in the theaters, but I could never make it work with my schedule, so when it finally popped up on a streaming service, I was all in. Immediately.

And I loved it. It’s spooky, freaky, and Osgood Perkins masterfully frames his images. He makes use of negative space in the frame and his angles make for a tense watch. It’s an uneasy anticipatory watch.

Set in the 1990s, which adds to the film’s comparisons to The Silence of the Lambs. The broadstrokes sound similar, a young female FBI agent is after a serial killer. But it’s very much its own thing, and I found it a fascinating watch.

Changes in image format hint at and reveal past events and the story captures the imagination from the get-go because of that initial jump-scare smash-cut with Nicholas Cage as the titular Longlegs.

Immediately afterwards we are introduced to Agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) who may be a little bit psychic, and is recruited by Agent Carter (Blair Underwood) to work on a strange series of murders that have occult overtones. Ten families, brutally murdered, and it seems they were all committed by the patriarch, but for strange coded letters left at each of the sites.

As she begins to work the case, things start to happen around her. There’s a strained relationship with her mother, Ruth (Alicia Witt), and she begins to fear that there’s a connection between her and Longlegs.

Cage is fantastically on-point, and arguably this is one of his best roles. He’s terrifying. The interrogation sequence is just horrifying. His portrayal of Longlegs is intense, and after his introduction at the beginning of the film, he had me on edge anytime he was on camera.

Unlike The Silence of the Lambs, there is a supernatural arc to it, but you’ve bought into it, just though the way Perkins orchestrates the film. The idea of Mr. Downstairs… gah.

It’s a unique and brilliant independent horror film, and I may have to look into Perkins’ other films. But I have to say, I loved everything about this one, the production, the framing, the performances. I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen once.

And in fact, I froze and rewound the film a couple of times to look for the hidden images as the demon appears in backgrounds throughout the film at key moments. Though you may not recognize the fact that the demon was on the screen consciously, you are aware of something that makes you uneasy in those moments.

Man, I really liked this one.