Longlegs

Something about the sustained and unrelenting dread of LONGLEGS makes it feel truly wicked. It doesn’t just scare you—it wears you down. From the first scene, there’s a lingering sense of something rotten just beneath the surface, and that feeling never lets up. Coupled with nuanced, tightly controlled performances and a disorienting visual and audio design that gets under your skin, this psychological thriller grinds you down in the best way possible.

The film evokes the essence of Silence of the Lambs, not through imitation but through atmosphere. It taps into that same unease, that slow, procedural dread where evil feels ancient and unknowable. It plays with familiar tropes—serial killers, damaged investigators, cryptic clues—but does so with a disturbing moodiness that sets it apart. There’s a cold intelligence at work here, one that isn’t interested in over-explaining or spoon-feeding the audience. You’re expected to sit with the horror and feel it press in.

The direction is razor-sharp. No cheap jump scares, no predictable beats. Instead, we get jagged edits, eerie soundscapes, and a creeping sense of doom that builds with every scene. And the period setting? Perfect choice. Horror feels more primal when the characters are cut off, when there’s no GPS, no text message, no digital escape. There’s something deeply unnerving about watching people try to survive with only their instincts and a landline.

It’s also worth saying that the film knows exactly when to hold back. There’s violence, but it’s the implications that haunt you. What you don’t see—what your mind fills in—is far worse.

One of the best this year. Smart, brutal, and genuinely terrifying. This is horror made with precision, not spectacle. And it lingers. Not just in the mind, but in the body. It stays with you, like something whispered that you wish you hadn’t heard.