The movie works better if you say to the group you identified - like me - who loves anything Fincher (Se7en, Mindhunter). Both Harris novels Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon (Manhunter). Polanski’s Repulsion, even Ninth Gate. The Vanishing 1988. Audition. That this movie is NOT like these movies because you go in expecting something similar and what you get is a feeble ineffectual Clarice or Will Graham or Holden Ford or Bill Tench or Somerset. Nothing is scary. And there is no psychopath like Dolarhyde or Buffalo Bill or Lecter or John Doe, you get a ninny for about 10 minutes. There’s no policier in detection, and reason and professionalism are thrown out the window. One should compare this movie to Cure which I am sure you agree that this is the movie that is most like Longlegs. Why, because there is a transference of evil which no one can control. You can’t beat the devil. There really isn’t a serial killer; there’s a doll. And you said the last 10 years, these incidents have been going on for decades - at least 20 years. What I see in the “aesthetics” is something similar to Carrie. Piper Laurie and Witt are alike and so is the house and the religious overtones. Also, Capote’s In Cold Blood, actually Infamous about Capote in the aftermath of the murder of the Clutter family in that old stale house with pictures of Jesus on the walls where everything looks tobacco-stained. I also found Lee Harker’s name similar to Harper Lee and wonder if Perkins thought of the novelist and her relationship to Capote at all. Probably just a coincidence but the name really stands out. I expected Silence of the Lambs and was really disappointed when I saw this.
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