The hook for this quirky horror is definitely Nicolas Cage and the almost comical character he plays. It’s something that is variously hidden and revealed in promotion for the film and it was one of the things that made me go to see it at a cinema.

In many ways it feels like an old school horror/thriller. There is a serial killer calling themselves Longlegs and, like the Zodiac killer, writing letters with cryptic clues designed to intrigue and perplex.

Our main protagonist is Lee (Maika Monroe), an FBI agent battling with the traumatic memories of her childhood and fractured relationship with her mother Ruth (Alicia Witt). When she becomes involved in the hunt for Longlegs, her instinct for where the danger is seems a bit too intuitive.

I don’t really want to talk about the details of the plot as it will take away from the pleasure of watching it unfold. It is one of those horrors where we are kept a little bit off kilter, where facts are hidden and then slowly revealed until we finally understand the source of the horror and we can reframe the story that we have been told.

Although Cage is a major draw, he is largely out of frame and this makes the scenes that he is in have all that much more impact. It’s hard to know how much of his performance is a parody and you can’t really separate it from what we know of Cage and his ability to satirise himself. Rather than distracting, it felt like a subtext of delight that made the film as a whole stand out from other equally clever but more forgettable contemporary horror films.