The new serial killer film Longlegs is a brilliant exercise in misdirection. Sometimes it’s formal, like when certain camera compositions obscure a character so haunting they’re beyond basic human understanding. Sometimes the misdirection is in the script itself—a riff on ’90s thrillers such as The Silence of the Lambs and Seven—because writer and director Osgood “Oz” Perkins understands a strong sense of atmosphere leaves audiences too frightened to catch certain details lurking just underneath the grim investigation at the film’s center. Perkins prefers to creep out his audience, creating a sense of persistent foreboding that lasts well beyond the shocking final minutes. The air-conditioning wasn’t working at the screening I attended, and yet the material was so unsettling and bizarre it felt literally chilling.

Because the protagonist Lee Harker (Maika Monroe, the memorable Final Girl from 2014’s ingenious It Follows) is an FBI agent, you might at first think Longlegs is an ordinary procedural. But from Monroe’s first scene, a routine house call in a neighborhood where a Satan-obsessed serial killer dubbed “Longlegs” might reside, Perkins scatters suggestions of the supernatural. Harker intuits there is something sinister about one house in particular, and when her partner greets the person inside death quickly follows. Harker’s boss Carter (Blair Underwood) is a no-nonsense agent who believes in the power of good police, not the Devil, so he doesn’t ask too many questions about Harker’s abilities when he makes her his partner. As their investigation continues, Harker begins to suspect there’s no rational explanation for the killings. But more alarmingly—and something she mostly keeps to herself—is a possible shared connection she has to the killer.

The drab, almost unremarkable cinematography of Longlegs is key to its eerie effect. The film is set in the mid-1990s, something Perkins repeatedly reminds us with an official portrait of Bill Clinton hanging in Carter’s office, but every interior looks as if it’s been long neglected. The FBI field office’s wood paneling is peeling, and the victims’ homes are so musty you can practically smell them. The period production design adds a David Lynch vibe, while Perkins’ gift for camera placement means compositions are simultaneously artful and menacing. Midway through the film, Harker and Carter wander into an abandoned barn, but the way the scene is styled makes the dark building look like a sinister tomb. Juxtaposition between horror and banality creates an unsettling frisson, so when Perkins introduces an unexpected figure into a shot, a quiet gasp is perhaps inevitable.

Atmosphere and production notwithstanding, a film like Longlegs can only be as good as its villain. And Perkins has created a great one—perhaps the most memorable since IT’s Pennywise. Brilliantly casted, Nicolas Cage plays Longlegs, though for long stretches of the film, Perkins keeps the star’s face hidden. We only see flashes of it, though there are plenty of opportunities to hear Cage’s absolutely unhinged performance. This teasing, the denial of a complete gaze, only adds to the character’s pervasive menace.

When we finally see Longlegs, Cage is barely recognizable. While early trailers made it known Cage was a cast member, the producers and marketing team were wise to keep him hidden until the film’s unveiling. Without the context Perkins has provided his villain, Cage’s appearance could come across as comedic. But Longlegs controls the killer’s reveal so carefully that, when it happens, Perkins has primed the audience to recoil in fear. Cage has never been a timid actor, and here he ratchets his mania to 100. Most directors don’t know how to use Cage, whereas Perkins—son of Anthony Perkins, aka the original Norman Bates—intuitively understands the inherent discomfort in Cage’s go-for-broke zeal.

It’s a great period for horror movies. There are so many good ones being made nowadays—Talk to Me and When Evil Lurks come immediately to mind—thanks to their growing audience and the fact that they’re cheap to produce. Despite the variety and proliferation of the genre, Longlegs doesn’t fit neatly into its contours. There are almost no jump scares, and while there is some gory imagery, Perkins never dwells on it. His approach sounds simple, and yet it’s almost impossible to execute. He starts from the simple premise: Evil is not just real, but a literal force of nature that ordinary people are powerless against. Even the best horror treats that idea timidly, whereas Longlegs takes that conceit and casts its cinematic gaze into a pitiless abyss.

Longlegs (R, 101 minutes) opens in area theaters on July 12.