Review by J_Frank_Parnell

Reminded me of 'Pearl' (2022), in the very weird, forced, affected, overly self-conscious feel the movie has; Both Longlegs and Pearl had decent elements; They felt like they both COULD have been pretty good movies. But, it's like they're trying to be all clever and "meta" or something, by doing stuff like having characters stare into the camera for uncomfortably long times, or make strange faces at the camera, or weird choices in editing, lighting, filters, etc, (seemingly) deleiberately trying to BREAK immersion, and make you aware that you're watching a movie.

I have no idea WHY they do this- I guess it DOES have a kinda "creepy", awkward feel... but only in a very shallow, empty way, which is completely defused, by the fact it stops you being immersed in the world of the movie. It mostly just comes off as pretentious, and not as clever as it was probably intended to be. Similar to 'Pearl', 'Longlegs' mostly just feels like "a near miss", or "wasted potential".

But even worse than 'Pearl', the fact 'Longlegs' has to end with the most literal, hand-holding, info-dump, with the narrator straight-up explaining "this is what happened", breaking the most basic rule of fiction- Show, don't tell, is basically just an admission of failure; Narration at the beginning of a movie, to set the story up, can feel kinda lazy sometimes, but it can work sometimes, too; But having that kind of narration at the END of the movie, to answer all the questions the story left open, just means you FAILED at communicating that stuff visually... you know, visual story-telling? The ENTIRE PURPOSE of making a goddam movie? 3/10.