Crime procedural ‘Longlegs’ soaked in dread

Among its many clever marketing tactics, film distributor Neon purposefully hid the face of its biggest asset — Nicolas Cage going full throttle as a demon-worshipping serial killer.

Keeping the surprise of Cage’s performance serves multiple purposes: 1) It prepares the audience for a “horror” movie that plays more like a tense police procedural a la “The Silence of the Lambs” or “Seven;” 2) It showcases star Maika Monroe (“It Follows”) and her character’s unique, delicate presence, which helps to ground the film’s more supernatural elements; and 3) It gives Cage the opportunity to disappear into his small-but-unforgettable character.

Even the most devoted Cage supporters (i.e. me) understand how difficult it can be for the actor to enter a performance without pretext. His turn as Dracula in last year’s otherwise forgettable “Renfield” was surprisingly subdued and magnetic, but the marketing for the movie still tried to capitalize on the Internet persona of Cage (Wild and Uncaged), creating a mismatch between final product and audience expectations.

In “Longlegs,” Cage probably has less than 15 minutes of screentime, which, whether intentional or not, evokes the appearances of Anthony Hopkins in “Lambs.”

The comparison to “Lambs” was always inevitable, considering the story here: A talented but inexperienced FBI agent (Monroe) is tasked by a superior officer (Blair Underwood) to investigate an unusual series of murder-suicides. In each crime, a seemingly loving father murders his entire family, the only connection being a Satanically coded letter left behind at the crime scenes, all signed “Longlegs.”

Monroe’s agent, meanwhile, is revealed to be either clairvoyant or extremely intuitive. Once she joins the case, however, she begins to experience disturbing visions, which might also be suppressed memories of her own disturbed childhood.

Aside from a brief, disturbing encounter in the film’s prologue, Cage doesn’t appear for a long while, a classic narrative move that works as well here as it did for the shark in “Jaws.” You don’t want to see too much of Longlegs, especially with how much the movie asks its audience to swallow in terms of its various twists.

Written and directed by Osgood Perkins, the filmmaker behind three solid recent horror titles (“The Blackcoat’s Daughter,” “I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House” and “Gretel and Hansel,”) “Longlegs” is mostly a triumph of mood, restraint and the methodical elevation of dread. The movie’s aesthetic and pacing has a chilling effect, and even when the story loses its way in the final act, “Longlegs” retains its creepy atmosphere.

Audiences will surely remember the Cage performance, but it’s Monroe that holds the movie together. She’s not quite Clarice Starling (hard to top one of the best movie characters of all time), but she’s strong enough to survive the comparison.