#longlegs headers

[editfandom]

LONGLEGS, 2024

[daisyfilmm]

maika monroe icons

[twilightfairie]

[cillirishan]

horror movie headers 4

1 , 2 , 3

[superectojazzmage]

Just back from Alien Romulus and hoooo boy oh boy. Review/analysis.

Easily the best Alien movie since the first two, which isn't saying much, yeah, but it is legit a really cool and well-made movie, competing with Late Night With The Devil, Longlegs, and Cuckoo for title of my favorite horror movie this year.

In a lot of ways it's about harvesting the few good ideas from the post-2 movies that were squandered and doing them right, plus getting the series back to it's healthier roots, kinda the movie equivalent of someone doing physical therapy to get back in the saddle after an injury. This means it's not quite brand new ground like some may hope for and I've heard some people feel it gets a little derivative at points because of it. I can kinda agree and certainly understand that criticism, but I feel it does what it's aiming for really well and sets things up for future works to go in even crazier directions. Furthermore, it takes a lot of time to try and weld together the disparate post-2 movies in a way that brings the series back to a little coherency.

The atmosphere is really intense and cool, swinging between lovecraftian dread and build-up and high-energy chaos. The aesthetics and special effects are gorgeous, taking full advantage of the progress that technology has made since 2 plus really digging in to the used cassette future vibe of the older films. The characters are likable and actually intelligent (or at least understandable) in behavior like in the first two movies, so you care about what's happening to them instead of just waiting for them to get munched. The action and kills were really cool and creative, the cinematography in general was off-kilter in an awesome way - there's a definite attempt to make the movie feel claustrophobic and intimate. Fede Alvarez did a fantastic job in general, I'd love to see him do more with the series.

It REALLY cranks up the series' psychosexual, freudian, and sexual assault subtext, arguably to a point where it's just plain text. So if you're sensitive to stuff like that or if this is your first go at Alien, be warned for that.

More specific notes go under the header for spoilers. Highly recommend you go in as blind as you can.

Andy and Rain were wonderful leads, their dynamic was fantastic and Calie Spaeny and David Jonsson both turned in great performances. I direly hope they join the first two films' casts as "major" characters for the series going forward.

The effects to make Daniel Betts look like Ian Holms were quite possibly the one and only time the special effects failed. It looks very wonky, which is sad because Betts does a really good job copying Holms' mannerisms for Ash while still making Rook feel like a distinct character.

In addition to the usual themes of sexual unease, genetics, and parenthood, this movie adds in some really interesting themes of familial legacy, the rise of new generations, foundations, etc.. Andy and Rain are like Romulus and Remus of myth, orphaned and left to fend for themselves but growing into founders of a new age - both in-story with their carrying the XX121 substance and evidence of Weyland-Yutani's misdeeds to Yvaga and out-of-story with them being the protagonists of a new era for Alien. Likewise, the Offspring is the first example of an entirely new species, neither human nor alien but taking from the lineages of both through Kay and Big Chap, a Romulus-like founder of it's breed that will later bear fruit in Resurrection with the Ripley clone and Newborn.

I'm really not kidding when I say above that the psychosexual undercurrents are taken to the extreme here. This movie basically sees the ways the original film subtly pin-pricked at those themes, says "fuck that", and deliberately rubs it in your face in a way designed to make sure you can't ignore it. It wants you to be grossed out and to squirm in your chair and it knows exactly how to make it happen.

Alvarez noted in the lead-up to release that he took a lot of influence from Isolation and you can definitely see that in how he depicts the Xenomorphs and the general aura of the film. He further described it as a kind of halfway point between the first and second movies and you can also see that; it has the Lovecraft-style tension and horror of the first, balanced with the energy and action of the second, and it does a really good job finding a middle ground between Ridley Scott and James Cameron's styles while also doing it's own dance.

I mentioned way back at the start how the movie basically harvests the good ideas from 3, Resurrection, Prometheus, and Covenant and gives them the room they deserve while dumping the bad. It does that in both terms of themes/style and continuity/lore. Concepts that those movies bungled like xeno-human hybridism, the black goo, genetic engineering as a focus, and so on are done here more creatively and competently. Themes that those films tried and failed to tackle are handled with significantly more grace. It has the atmosphere and characterization of 3 but none of it's baggage and needlessly depressive tone. It has the body horror and weirdness of Resurrection without taking it to the zany, embarrassing areas that movie went. The effects and creativity of Prometheus and Covenant without any of their awful writing and clumsy messages. Alvarez takes on kind of an Al Ewing-esque "repairman" writing style here.

The Xenomorphs are absolutely deranged in behavior compared to most portrayals, attacking like either cruel sadists or raging chimps and rarely bothering to take hosts. I'm not sure if such a reading was intended, but I got the vibe that the idea is Xenos raised without a queen or hive grow to be basically sociopathic like how real world predatory animals grown without parental figures become feral and dysfunctional. Which would also explain a lot about how the Xeno in the original movie, Big Chap, acts there.

The Offspring's design is fucking wicked and I love it.

One of my few major criticisms is that Big Chap died off-screen instead of getting more to do. What was the point of having him be alive at the start if he wasn't gonna be used beyond a backstory point to set up the main story?

All in all, a very impressive effort and a great return to form for the series that I recommend highly.

[tsenya]

brief overview of some movies ive watched and rewatched over the last few months.

first time viewings:

strange darling - i liked it ! i waited months to watch it and deliberately avoided reading reviews and watching trailers for it and im glad i did.

leave my girl alone - honestly one of the funnest movies ive watched in months. i already want to rewatch. the last 30-60 seconds are glorious.

vhs beyond - ok i was a LITTLE harsh in my review. ok i was entirely petty because [SPOILER] they put real life youtubers in the movie and i was so discombobulated like what are YOUTUBERS doing in my HORROR MOVIE! i also have gripes with the 'little green men' subgenre that mostly stem from the fact that my dad believes in aliens and like im gonna be so honest with you i have 1000000 other things on my mind i dont have time or room to think about whether aliens are real and if the US government is using their technology or whatever i do not care. unless theyre giving me free healthcare i do not want to hear about it.

SEGMENTS I LIKED: Stowaway, Fur Babies, and Dream Girl. (tw for body horror, gore, animal death, etc etc etc)

cuckoo - i wanted a little bit more from it but it was good! i liked hunter schaefer as the lead. i think dan stevens should pull a brad dourif and play scuzzy dudes the rest of his career hes good at it and always looks like hes having fun. i will not pretend to understand what was going on i'll prolly have to rewatch

longlegs - full disclaimer i probably set my expectations too high and it's entirely possible that this movie simply wasnt for me. i really wanted to like it and expected to but. i did not. theres more i could say but i think i said enough. i'll try rewatching next year and see how i feel about it.

dracula 3000 - im not bringing this movie up because it's good, it was horrible, i just want to say that it's been 20 years can someone please make a movie about a vampire in space that's GOOD i know someone out there can do it PLEASE

rewatches:

pandorum - i couldnt tell you if this was a good movie or not i really couldnt i cannot objectively assess movies i watched when i was younger very well. all i can tell you is that i really really really liked the sci-fi/horror fusion. also the creature design still holds up i need to know who did it bec it looks better than some of the stuff out today

lake mungo - found footage horror movie OF ALL TIME

sunshine - im in love w this movie i love everything about it. also something i thought about was that it was weird watching chr*s ev*ns in something not marvel is was actually refreshing for once. we need to get cillian murphy into horror/suspenseful sci fi PLEASE.

the slumber party massacre - idk what to say other than 1) idc what i thought when i first watched it i was WRONG i love this movie so much and i do recommend all the reviews i liked if u want to know some of my thoughts/stuff i agree w 2) valerie bates is currently no. 1 girl in horror for me. as u could probably tell from my icon. and header. and sidebar image. and blog page. and

[inflame]

did a longlegs/tv glow double header (aka 'the two genders of Twin Peaks Homage') with nat tonight; feeling ill (and loving it), AMA

[sprinklysparkle]

Hey did u make the renfield and longlegs at mcdonalds image and if so, can i use it as my blog's header image? I can give cred in bio :))) either way thank you for bringing this image into my life

my friend @natsukiicupcake made it ! and she said you can use it with creds :3

[underwhelp]

What The Dark Hides

Daybreakers / Frankie Dalton X Reader

Wishes Do Come True

Far Cry 5 / Jacob Seed X Reader

An Unusual Day

Longlegs / Dale Cobble X Reader

headers and dividers by @saradika-graphics

[cipherpolfiles]

Welcome to the grand opening of the newly created* CPFiles’ Corner!

* Newly created literally means I just came up with this crap, because I couldn’t find a suitable image from this week’s chapter (One Piece  865), so I recycled this from an edit I made back in September and added Judge into it; now Niji looks like a midget LOL. The layout ended up looking like it was advertising a section, so here we are. Hope you don’t mind. Also, sorry for the delay.

Here, I’ll try to analyse manga scenes, backgrounds/backstories and even offering critique on Oda’s treatment concerning certain characters, always taking the info we have on them into account. To sum it up, basically what I’ve been doing until now, but with a fancy name. Let’s go then!

As the section header claims, today I’ll be analysing the panels the Vinsmokes and Sanji had in chapter 865 ‘Hey, Mother’ and comparing them to what we already knew about this infamous family beforehand.

Now, everyone should know I find the Vinsmoke family interesting by now. Do I think they’re good, nice people? No, I don’t. Do I agree with their methods or ideology? Not a chance in hell, but that doesn’t automatically exclude the fact that I think they make fascinating characters. Just wanted to make sure you all understood that before anyone has the brilliant idea to accuse me of being pro-nazi or something of the sort.

Well, let’s begin with the actual analysis.

The first thing I noticed a few chapters back and that I kept wondering about during this chapter, was the change when it came to seating arrangements. See, as I said here, the immediate positions to the head’s right and left are always reserved for guests of honour or people/family members they have in great esteem. To date, as far as the Vinsmokes are concerned, these two positions have always been occupied by Reiju and Ichiji.

As you can see in the panels, Ichiji maintains his position at the seat of honour whereas Reiju has been replaced by Niji. What happened?

My first thought was that Judge had “demoted” his firstborn for everything that’s happened involving her, but then I remembered that he doesn’t know a thing about it, so there would be no reason to take away the seat from her.

Then I realised that, because it’s a big event with many guests, they probably had their seats assigned by Big Mom’s staff and didn’t have a choice in the matter.

Let’s go to the next panel.

This issue they keep repeating about needing the raid suits and Judge’s entire attitude when it comes to trusting Big Mom really bothers me, because it really shows just how inconsistent Oda is being when it comes to his characters during this arc.

1. Judge’s attitude

Judge was first introduced as a ruthless genius warlord and we later discovered he’s also a genius when it comes to science, since he discovered the lineage factor (good old DNA) along with Vegapunk.

Then we got this from Reiju. As I said before on another post, Reiju is basically telling us her father is a very cautious and rather distrustful man, but that even he seems to be taking the situation lightly. She makes him sound like he has some serious trust issues. What we were shown in chapter 864 though, is a Judge who blindly trusted a notorious pirate such as Big Mom would keep to their word, which is completely out of character for him.

This is not “taking a situation a bit lightly”, this is far beyond getting a little overconfident; it’s pure recklessness and it completely clashes with that cautiousness Oda was conveying at first. How can someone who is so wary and suspicious of everything, trust a criminal blindly and show up without any sort of back up plan?

2. The Raid Suits

This one REALLY bothers me. I understand Judge needing one, because he’s not genetically modified like his children are, but whatever do his kids need the raid suits for? Aside from being a bit of an extra help, I mean.

They have superhuman strength, speed and exoskeletons that are as hard as a rock and that function as a “natural” armour. These kids were already doing stuff like the images below show by the time they were 7-8 years old.

So I ask again, why would they need the raid suits if they already are human weapons themselves?

And, yes, I know that candy coating Perospero created for their bullets pierces through the exoskeleton, but the Vinsmokes don’t know that, with the exception of Reiju, who was actually the test subject for said bullets.

Anyway, moving on.

Afterwards, we got this page showing us Sanji’s desperate attempt to get to his blood-family before they’re murdered and Reiju playing martyr once again. I’m seriously getting tired of all this Saint Sanji and Saint Reiju stuff. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love both characters, but there’s no need for Oda to keep repeating just how wonderful they both are over and over again, it’s getting old. I already commented on the “I’m ready to die” smile on another post, so I have nothing else to say about this.

Next time we see the Vinsmoke family is in this scene: Big Mom’s scream.

Let’s have a look at what seems to be going on in these panels.

A - Reiju. We can’t see her eyes, but we can see in her expression that she’s making an effort to stay conscious, although not too much. She does seem to be withstanding the wave rather well. On the lower panel, though, we see her slightly toppling over from her position, as if she were completely exhausted.

B - Yonji. He seems to be the most affected by the scream and Haki. Just by looking at his rolled eyes, he actually seems to be on the verge of losing consciousness. Thus, we can conclude his willpower is the weakest.

C - Niji. He seems to be one of the most affected by Big Mom’s Haki, along with Judge and Yonji. We cannot see his eyes, but just looking at his tense jaw and the veins popping up on his face, we can determine that he’s making a huge effort to stay conscious.

D - Ichiji. His facial expression seems a bit tighter than usual, but otherwise, he keeps being nearly impossible to read. He seems to be resisting the cry and haki combo rather effortlessly, but we can’t see his eyes, like in Niji’s case.

E - Judge. He seems to be holding his own rather well, actually. He’s grimacing and making an effort as the rest of them, but his eyes are not rolled back, not even an inch. His willpower is pretty strong.

Let’s continue with the next set of panels.

Ok, so Chopper plugs the Vinsmokes’ ears (Reiju’s in the picture) while Sanji destroys the candy that’s immobilising them.

Is no one else bothered by the fact that Reiju looks like her child/preteen self here? I mean, her face was drawn rounder, like that of a child’s; I don’t know, I just find her weird in these panels.

Also, I want to seize this opportunity to talk about the Vinsmoke eyebrows now that we have a rather good headshot of Judge.

As you can see, Judge’s eyebrows seem to be thick and unlikely to curl in the way his children’s eyebrows do (I’m not going to trust the anime right now, because they seem to be making an awful lot of mistakes this arc - the longleg lady, turning the raid suits into tights...). We also know that Sora’s didn’t curl at the end either. So my conclusion is that Oda was NOT joking when he said that maybe Sanji was a devil fruit in SBS Volume 45. It’s very possible that Judge might have actually mixed some devil fruit DNA into his children to make them more powerful, hence the swirly eyebrows they all have, but that they do not seem to have been inherited from their parents, or their mysterious ability to create/wield elemental powers (fire, lightning). I’m probably completely wrong, although it might be worth considering.

Next one is probably everyone’s favourite panel.

There it is!

The evolution from chwan to swan I joked about while comparing Sanji’s backstory to The Ugly Duckling.

This is clearly the moment when Judge realises, even if it’s for just a second since we don’t know what he’ll do next, that Sanji might not be a failure after all.They’re all awestruck, with the exception of Niji, who isn’t even looking at Sanji at all. Wonder if that has a hidden meaning or he’s just trying to get up after being trapped by candy for a while.

I must say it’s nice to see Ichiji with an expression other than anger or a blank face, but it’s obvious he doesn’t understand why Sanji is doing this. He can’t wrap his mind around the fact that he’s being saved by someone he had bullied all his childhood. Also, notice how the panel is specifically designed to leave Reiju out of it, because she already knows how great Sanji is. This was clearly planned to be the moment for the rest of the family to realise the greatness that is Sanji and be forced to look up to him for once.

And last but not least, we have this panel.

Nami and Carrot handing their respective raid suit to each Vinsmoke.

Once again, Ichiji seems lost and doesn’t really know how to react to these people who are giving their all to help them even though they were nasty to them and Sanji turned them away rather rudely the previous day. Not much else to mention here, except for what I already said here: Ichiji’s ears go from elf to normal every other panel he appears in, which is not important per se, but I find it funny.

My God, that was long!

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[slashericons]

LONGLEGS (2024)