‘Longlegs’ Review: Nicolas Cage Worms His Way Into Your Nightmares With Dread-Filled Serial Killer Thriller

Now here’s a first: Apart from the pale-faced freak show of the film’s title, the experience of watching “Longlegs” didn’t strike me as all that frightening. At first. In the moment, it’s considerably less scary than the ecstatic early buzz — ginned up by Neon via whisper campaigns and strategic advance screenings — would have you believe. Less than 12 hours after seeing it, however, the demented Nicolas Cage character resurfaced in my nightmares, popping up out of nowhere to screech, “Hail Satan!” in that unnerving, high-pitched voice of his.How many horror movies can claim to hijack your subconscious? With “Longlegs,” writer-director Osgood Perkins (“The Blackcoat’s Daughter”) delivers the kind of payoff we sought out as kids, daring ourselves to watch films about boogeymen that made us want to sleep with the lights on. Here, Cage plays a clearly unwell rural dollmaker who crafts life-size effigies of his victims that inexplicably cause their families to turn homicidal. It’s one thin...