Longlegs

I was so excited to see Longlegs at the Broadway last night after all of the hype surrounding its release and the huge crowd only increased my anticipation (I don't think there was an empty seat in the theater).  Unfortunately, I think I would have liked this more if I hadn't had such impossibly high expectations.  FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) is assigned by her superior (Blair Underwood) to a cold case involving a serial killer known as Longlegs (Nicolas Cage) after she is shown to possess a heightened sense of intuition on another case.  Over the course of several decades a series of men have suddenly snapped and killed their families before killing themselves and every crime scene features a Satanic message in code from Longlegs even though there is no evidence that anyone else was there.  As Harker investigates, she discovers that there is a connection between the daughters in each family and that she also shares this connection and may have interacted with Longlegs as a child.  There is a very palpable sense of dread that is enhanced by unnerving sound design, atmospheric lighting, and a brilliant performance from Monroe (I was genuinely afraid for her character on multiple occasions because of her ability to portray the terror Harker is experiencing).  Cage is also very committed but I found his performance to be more disturbing than scary and his bloated and clown-like appearance (with some wild prosthetics) is, in my opinion, at odds with the Satanic character he is portraying so it is hard to take that threat seriously.  My biggest disappointment, however, is that the unbearable tension so painstakingly crafted in the first two acts is undone as the mystery is revealed.  It is such a letdown after what was incipiently promised.  Director Osgood Perkins definitely delivers on the style but not the substance and I was expecting both after all of the buildup.