The mysterious Nicolas Cage film critics are calling 2024's scariest movie

In early 2023, Nicolas Cage signed on to star as a serial killer in a new horror movie called Longlegs. Over the 18 months or so since then, a picture has emerged of a truly terrifying and completely unique film that critics are now calling one of the scariest movies of the decade.

Finally, UK audiences know when they're going to be able to experience Longlegs. Black Bear is overseeing a cinema release on 12 July, so we're just a few weeks away from diving into the darkness Cage has created along with writer-director Osgood Perkins.

But what's most remarkable about the movie isn't what we know about it. It's what we don't know. And that's thanks to one of the most fascinating viral marketing campaigns in years — a real throwback in an era of three-minute mega trailers, which give everything away.

Longlegs and the best viral marketing campaign in years

US distributor Neon started teasing Longlegs in January, releasing a series of enigmatic 30-second clips in which the movie's title wasn't even clearly included. They featured a terrified father making a 911 call about his daughter, a shrouded figure with a hidden pair of glowing eyes, and in perhaps the most terrifying of the lot, the distorted voice of Nicolas Cage.

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We've had some more trailers since and they unveil a little more of the plot, but Cage has still been kept off-screen. There isn't a single clear shot of Cage in any of the marketing materials so far and, in fact, the first full trailer was entirely free of dialogue.

Even the final run of trailers has been smart and enigmatic, leaning on atmosphere and the chilling soundscape to sell the movie rather than the plot.

Watch: Full UK trailer for Longlegs

This is the sort of supreme confidence that distributors rarely show in the modern era. Often, it's possible to trace the entire narrative of an upcoming movie based on its various trailers. If it's a comedy, you'll have seen all of the funniest jokes and, if it's a horror movie, the three or four scariest images and moments will have been on constant rotation in cinema previews for months.

Read more: Nicolas Cage’s upcoming horror movie debuts to perfect Rotten Tomatoes score (Total Film)

Longlegs, though, has been entirely different. Osgood Perkins and those marketing his film have decided to do something unusual and focus on mystery as a selling point above all else. Other than the fact, this is a serial killer movie that might well have occult elements, what do we actually know?

What do we actually know about Longlegs?

While we don't know very much about the character Cage is playing in Longlegs, we know a lot more about his co-star Maika Monroe. She's playing a young FBI agent called Lee Harker — a Dracula reference perhaps? — who is assigned to a serial killer case in which the word "Longlegs" appears at crime scenes.

The further down the rabbit hole Lee goes, the more she discovers that there might be something weird and occult going on around this killer. There's also an element of personal connection for her that only makes things more terrifying.

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We know that Monroe can hold her own in this sort of film given her track record as the lead of films including It Follows, The Guest and the more recent Watcher. She's better at being convincingly scared than just about any actor in Hollywood today.

Perkins himself spoke to Polygon and alluded to classic serial killer movies like The Silence of the Lambs, Zodiac, and Seven when asked about his movie's tone. He called Longlegs a "pop-punk, nostalgic serial killer movie with a supernatural flavour".

In reference to the marketing campaign, he said he was "hiding something under a veil" with the trailers and enigmatic images. Perkins added: “We are hiding something under a curtain and it’s more fun to pull the sheet off when there’s a lot of people watching ... I’m proud to have made a movie that works well that way."

Read more: Nicolas Cage: ‘I may have three or four more movies left in me’ (PA Media)

Ahead of the film's release in July, the first wave of critics has been able to see it, and it's fair to say they're adding further fuel to the hype train. SlashFilm, for example, called it a "masterpiece" and said it's "the most terrifying horror movie of 2024".

Elsewhere, horror experts Bloody Disgusting noted that Longlegs takes aim at the modern obsession with true crime and they said it works as "a visceral rebuttal to society’s compulsive need to find logic in the most heinous of crimes". Sounds pretty darn chilling to us.

Read more: The best horror movies of 2023 (Yahoo Entertainment)

Thankfully, most reviewers have maintained the mystery and kept the surprises of Perkins' story under wraps. Longlegs is a rare and refreshing example of a movie that has been hidden from its audience's view until the last moment — and that should be treasured.

Longlegs is in UK cinemas from 12 July.