SPOILER ALERT: This story contains major spoilers about “Longlegs,” now in theaters.
Even before its release, critics and fans of horror noticed serial killer director Osgood Perkins’ “Longlegs” hailed it as one of the darkest and most sinister motion pictures in recent memory. Now that the film is finally in theaters, viewers can try it out for themselves, but it’s safe to say: The horror hype is real.
From Nicolas Cage’s efficiency as a demented serial killer to the perfect dark ending, “Longlegs” will leave even the most shocked horror fans stunned. Homicide thriller has twists galore, and other people who go to the film blindly gained’t be able to predict how it ends up.
Perkins sat with Election for the final debate, but those who must go to the movie unspoiled must tread fastidiously. prepared?
It is finally revealed in “Longlegs” that FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) has a personal relationship with Cage’s killer. After being teased in the film’s prologue, Lee later learns that Longlegs visited his childhood home on his birthday, the same he does to all his victims. Although, for some reason, he survived.
During the investigation, Lee connects the dots that Longlegs must have a confederacy for all the evil murders. But who? After the FBI arrests him, Longlegs tells Lee to talk to his mother Ruth (Alicia Witt). He then brutally smashes his face on the table after interrogation, killing himself.
Lee drives over to his mother’s home to discover the truth: She is a secret Longlegs associated with everything besides. After Longlegs visits Lee as a child, Ruth takes him in to keep her daughter safe. Ruth dresses up as a nun and visits houses to drop off mysterious dolls as belongings from the church. Longlegs suffocates the doll with magical, demonic whispers, which make the house brain-possessed and content to kill each other. Longlegs lives in the Harkers’ basement, and Lee’s doll gives her psychic talents.
After Ruth destroys Lee’s doll and escapes, Lee determines her mother’s destination: the home of FBI Agent Carter (Blair Underwood). It happened to Carter’s daughter’s birthday, but Lee was just too late. Ruth is already in the lounge with the doll, and the Carter household has been brainwashed. Agent Carter kills his wife in the kitchen, and just before he goes after his daughter, Lee shoots his mother and breaks her trance. However, Lee ran out of bullets and the doll was undamaged. The film ends with “Hail Devil!” of Longlegs, leaving the fate of the surviving characters unclear.
Where is the Longlegs character from? Have you made them think and make the movie, or have you made a murder thriller that then creates this villain?
It is built on the character of Longlegs, which is a personality that has tried to fit itself into the various tasks that I have done. If you regularly write and produce specs and no one pays you if you don’t have the material to supply, you’re going to make crap on a regular basis. You find yourself with a universe of problems that can be swirling around, and also you try to pull them out and stick them in. Longlegs is an entity, this is shabby – is he the birthday clown? Is he holding a puppet? Do they take care of stuffed animals? Is that a small piano? You begin to wonder about this involving your child on their birthday and also you are in another room and also you don’t know that they are related and weird. They don’t kidnap little kids because we saw 1,000 earlier. He talks to them. You start to wonder about it. After I decided that I was going to try for a serial killer procedure that was going to be another one, I wanted a bad guy. Longlegs was like, “I’ll do it.” In your draft drawer, one of them must have said, “Put me in, coach.” And so Longlegs.
The phrase “Longlegs” itself is just creepy, but we don’t get the point of why they call themselves that. Where did the title come from?
We writers are synonymous with phrases. We like how certain phrases sound and look and shape and really feel. Yes, it has the long legs of my father and a terrible facet, but it definitely feels like the 70s to me – it’s almost like a Led Zeppelin song or someone in a van, there’s something fun about it. It seems like a classic phrase that won’t be thrown out anytime soon. It positions the film in a strange place. You don’t get totally spy. It doesn’t really match, which is more fun for me and creates the curiosity that I believe is necessary.
The previous film, “The Blackcoat’s Daughter,” also featured Satanism, but this film took it up a notch. What makes you need to reorder?
All this Baroque devil worship, it is not that I do not take significantly; for me, it’s window dressing. Like Halloween, people dress up. It’s just ceremony and pomp and circumstance and music and celebration and weirdness. These are all horror-style issues, explorations of what we don’t see. That’s actually fun and surprising. I’m really just trying to make one thing that can be seen and satisfied, especially for horror viewers. Horror viewers put up with some dangerous things and let them take as a result of what they want; they want to fix horror. But every now and then you have to give them one thing that is just a little extra manicured and curated for them.
The Longlegs doll has this supernatural aspect. Have you got proof of how it works?
I, But I gained’t say. It’s part of the devil’s playfulness. Isn’t it a great form when you introduce a doll into someone’s house and make a fool of everyone. This is kind of humorous and weird. It’s almost like, “You’re a bastard and let him in. You don’t need to sign! Just because a nun brought you to you, doesn’t mean it’s better to let him into your house with her. There’s also a form of “you probably did it to yourself” vibe, which I believe is kind of fun.
We don’t know Ruth’s faith, but it must have been some kind of Christianity. Do you have a certain faith in your mind or do you want the film to be a critique?
I am not non-secular. I do not take the faith of two significantly or not significantly; it’s not my place to tell people what to think or feel, or where to go, feel safer or responsible or whatever they want. I believe it’s just usually a type of humor that people are religious. Humorous people, right? We all walk by doing the factor of trying to stay above water. Even Ruth Harker had the last giggle about that prayer. Like, pray? Everyone prays. Everyone in the Middle East prays all the time rudely. After using things from the Bible, it only has good language in it. The Bible has only vulgar and funny language. “The beast that came out of the sea with ten horns and a head and a crown.” It is superior. Not to be sophomoric about it, but the Bible has some fun and silly words that can help when you’re a writer just looking for a phrase.
What’s always the last thing you think about? Is there a lighter ending to the film?
It’s the last time. The ending was tragic. Satan wins again on a small scale. One of the many fun problems with using the devil as your villain is that the devil doesn’t actually dominate the world. The devil all the time looks like this, “I’m just going to have sex with this person, I’m going to destroy this house, I’m going to destroy this child, I’m going to torture this priest.” It’s not like, “I’m going to eat the Vatican.” It will not reach that time for me with Satan. Satan is much funnier and funnier than that. Lee Harker’s story ends with the end of the movie. The last shot he took was the worst factor that could have happened.
Killing Longlegs earlier than the end of the movie is a horrible second. Do you ever plan on keeping them longer?
We were aware of the references and we wanted to create pop art. As many opportunities as we can crib or steal a transfer from one of the many nice serial killer movies, we want to do it. It’s just “Se7en.” I bet Kevin Spacey had three or 4 scenes, right? He provided himself, he was in the factor after he was in the car and there was a tip. He in all times now, which we have with Cage too, like there is the presence of this factor, But when you get to him, it’s almost anticlimactic. In fact, he was very climactic in “Se7en,” but I’m really glad that John Doe gave up. We want to type – “rip off” just isn’t the best word – “borrow” is closer to what we’ve done.
This interview has been edited and condensed for readability.