The Man Downstairs Suggests Five Movies to Pair With ‘Longlegs’
I saw Longlegs last weekend and loved it. Surprisingly, everyone else I went with did, too. I say surprisingly because despite what the binary online discourse might suggest, people are scared by different things, and that’s okay (for reference, I liked this year’s Imaginary). My partner in particular was floored by what Osgood Perkins accomplished and immediately demanded more movies with that same sense of pernicious, gnawing, inescapable dread. You ask, I deliver.
Twitter, too, was alive with voices chiming in, most of which were asking for the same thing. Audiences loved Longlegs and wanted recommendations for more movies just like it. In a sense, that is a challenging task. While Perkins pays homage to the best of the 1990s procedurals, Longlegs still regularly feels like a singular piece of cinema, imbued so heavily with Perkins’ own identity, a facsimile would be hard to come by. Still, I’m always up for a challenge, so here I present you with five movies that, in one way or another, will strike that same chilling chord Longlegs did (and where to watch them).
Spoilers will be brief, but be warned.
I Saw the Devil (Hulu)
A key component of Longlegs’ distinct swagger of evil is its supernatural bent. Where other gothic procedurals like True Detective remain committed to the ambiguity of their crimes, Longlegs does read as confirmatory in its supernatural origins. Possession by means of dolls isn’t just real to Nicolas Cage’s killer, but real in the larger world of Longlegs’ rendition of 1990s Oregon. Kim Jee-woon’s I Saw the Devil, despite its title, features no such supernatural explanation. It does, however, cultivate the same overarching sense of disquieting indifference. Both the world of Longlegs and the world of I Saw the Devil are augmented by quotidian violence. Corpse after corpse in a world indifferent to suffering. I Saw the Devil is depressing stuff, but it’s breathlessly tense, opting for more realistic violence while maintaining that same undercurrent of evil.
The Wailing (Netflix)
Conversely, Na Hong-jin’s does lean into the supernatural for its frenetic, terrifying final act. The Wailing is one of the scariest movies I’ve ever seen. Early beats are imbued with more humor than Perkins allows in Longlegs (that sensational asylum director notwithstanding), though at its core, The Wailing is parallel in its procedural descent into evil. Killings and illnesses plague a rural South Korean village, and throughout the course of the film, law enforcement and religious leaders collide in an effort to make sense of an monster, like Longlegs’, that defies easy explanation. Small note, but no less important—Longlegs’ best scares are in the eyes, and The Wailing has eyes for days.
Lake Mungo (Prime Video)
Hear me out here. Lake Mungo was actually the first suggestion I had for my partner, and we watched it the day after catching Longlegs in theaters. Now, Lake Mungo is punctuated with a sadness that Longlegs doesn’t quite have, but beneath the layers of painful, searing grief is still a ghost story, and a pretty damned scary one at that. After Alice drowns at a lake, her family begins to suspect her presence has returned to their home. Unfolding in faux-documentary style with a procedural pulse, Lake Mungo remains incomprehensibly, beautifully layered. As a blind watch, you’ll never know what to expect next. By the end, Lake Mungo will materialize in the deepest pit of your stomach—good luck trying to shake it.
The Treatment (Tubi)
I’m reticent to suggest Hans Herbots’ The Treatment. The broad gist sees a Belgian police inspector investigating a series of child kidnappings while grappling with his own brother’s abduction years before. If it all sounds like Law & Order lite, trust me—it isn’t. Without a doubt, The Treatment is one of the grimmest movies I’ve ever seen, so committed to its own disturbing rendition of the modern world, it’s liable to leave you feeling empty for weeks. Curiously, however, The Treatment never gets quite as violent as the other films on this list. Instead, its terror lives along the periphery, outlined in dialogue and setting, though never literalized. If you can stomach it (and, please, it’s assuredly not for everyone), few movies (except Longlegs) will rattle you in quite the same way.
Cure (Available to rent online)
Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cure. Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cure. Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cure. That’s really all there is to say. Kurosawa’s procedural classic was unfairly maligned online over the weekend. I saw someone compare Cure to Longlegs, referring to the former as a refrigerator, all buzz, and the latter as a wind-up toy. I agree with the assessment of Longlegs, at least, though to suggest Cure yields no payoff pains me in a way I’ve never felt before. An incredulous series of murders plague a Tokyo Metropolitan Police detective. Victims are found with an ‘X’ carved into their bodies, and the murderers are always nearby. Yet, strangely, they possess no memories of the crimes they’ve committed. Cure, like Longlegs, wades into supernatural territory with its unfurling of hypnosis and mesmerism, though it never concedes to the dark quite like Longlegs. For every possible explanation, even the supernatural ones, there are no assurances. It’s a masterpiece, through and through, and the best praise I can give Longlegs is that it deserves to stand alongside Cure’s legacy.
What do you think? Were you a fan of Longlegs? If you needed to put together a streaming guide for Longlegs fans, what would you include? Let me know over on Twitter @Chadiscollins.
Categorized:Editorials
