By Bob Grimm

There has been a lot of press about Longlegs, the latest Nicolas Cage vehicle, saying it is the scariest movie of the year, and comparing it to Silence of Lambs.

Yes, it was scary enough, and because it has a plot revolving around a serial killer, and the main protagonist is a female FBI agent, the Lambs comparisons are justified. When Cage, who plays the demented title character, is onscreen, the movie is genuinely disturbing. Thanks to some very cool choices by director Oz Perkins (son of horror icon Anthony, who played Norman Bates in Psycho), much of the film has the general sense of eeriness and unease that horror mavens crave.

Maika Monroe (It Follows) plays Agent Lee Harker, an introverted and somewhat nervous person when she’s on the job—but she’s invaluable, because she has an almost psychic sense when it comes to what moves a bizarre serial killer will make next. While Cage, who plays the killer, isn’t in much of the film early on, he shows up enough to make his mark. Thanks to some wild makeup and very interesting vocal choices and line reads, he provides one of the freakiest performances of his career. We’re talking Nic Cage here, so it has to be pretty freaky to register.

Perkins, who also wrote the screenplay, gets big credit for pulling off some nice mysteries, and revealing them in ways that feel worthy of your time. If anything is predictable here, it’s because you’ve seen the serial-killer-hunt movies before, and this one does follow some pre-set patterns (thus, the Lambs comparisons). But if you guess parts of the mysteries, you probably won’t be able to guess all of them, especially if film critics don’t give too much away.

That’s my cue to talk about something else.

Good performances abound, especially from Cage and Monroe. Cage, of course, is the king of wild, off-the-rail choices. He and Perkins work well together to make those character choices both scary and funny; you might find yourself laughing a bit while being completely uncomfortable and off-balance. It’s the sort of performance that has helped Cage’s renaissance in recent years, along with brilliant work in Pig, Color Out of Space, Mandy (man, do I love Mandy), Dream Scenario and now this crazy movie.

Monroe has never been better, giving us a character that defies any real description. Is she a brilliant agent? Is she crazy? Is she scared of everybody and completely undeserving of her post? Perkins and Monroe keep us guessing, and Monroe owns every moment onscreen.

I’d forgotten that Blair Underwood existed before I saw this movie; as Agent Carter, Harker’s slightly grumpy partner, he’s every bit as good as Monroe and Cage. The same can be said for Alicia Witt (Twin Peaks), who is unrecognizable and hypnotic as Carter’s mildly disturbed mother.

This review would not be complete without major props going to the cinematographer, the set design and the editing; they all help make Longlegs a great-looking, expertly paced horror movie.

The stacked cast, the solid script and Cage’s on-fire performance help Longlegs live up to most of the hype—a rare occurrence in cinema these days. I was fired up for the film, and I was satisfied, and quite uncomfortable, watching it. Nicolas Cage scores again.