Courtesy of the Everett Collection
Spoiler alert: This story includes:Long legs‘ is currently showing in theaters.
Even before the release, the director Osgood Perkins‘ Serial killer thriller ‘Long Legs’ has been hailed as one of the darkest, most sinister films in recent years, and now that the film is finally in theaters so audiences can see for themselves, one thing can be said with certainty: the horror movie mayhem is real.
from Nicolas CageFrom John F. Kelly’s performance as a crazed serial killer to the perfectly dark ending, Long Legs will leave even the most dedicated horror fan in stitches. This murder mystery is full of twists and turns, and a clueless viewer going into the movie will never be able to predict how it will end.
Perkins is variety I won’t discuss the ending, but those who want to watch the movie spoiler-free should proceed with caution. Are you ready?
In “Long Legs,” it is eventually revealed that FBI Agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) has a personal connection to Cage’s killer. After it’s hinted at in the film’s prologue, Lee realizes that Long Legs, like the other victims, visited her home on her birthday as a child. But for some reason, she survived.
As his investigation progresses, Lee discovers that Longlegs must have had an accomplice in all of his brutal murders. But who? After the FBI arrests him, Longlegs tells Lee to talk to his mother, Ruth (Alicia Witt), and after questioning, he brutally smashes his face into a table and commits suicide.
Lee drives to her mother’s house and learns the truth: she has been Longlegs’ secret partner all this time. After Longlegs visited Lee as a child, Ruth made a deal with him to protect her daughter. Ruth would visit the family’s home disguised as a nun and deliver a mysterious doll as a gift from the church. Longlegs would infuse the doll with supernatural demonic whispers, putting the family into a brainwashing trance and encouraging them to kill each other. Longlegs lived in the Harker family’s basement, and Lee’s doll gave her supernatural powers.
After Ruth destroys Lee’s doll and escapes, Lee tracks down her mother’s next target: the home of FBI Agent Carter (Blair Underwood). It’s Carter’s daughter’s birthday, but Lee arrives too late; Ruth is already in the living room with the doll, and the Carter family is brainwashed. Agent Carter kills his wife in the kitchen, and just before he can pursue his daughter, Lee shoots her mother, breaking the brainwashing. However, Lee is out of bullets, leaving the doll unharmed. The film ends with Longlegs’ ominous “Hail, Satan!”, leaving the fates of the surviving characters unknown.
Courtesy of the Everett Collection
Where did the character of Long Legs come from? Did you have him in mind and build the film around him, or did you create a murder mystery and then create this villain?
It was built around the character of Long Legs, who I was trying to fit into other projects I’d done. You always write and spec and when nobody pays you or you don’t have source material, you always end up making up bullshit. You end up with this universe of stuff swirling around and you try to pull it out and shove it in. Long Legs was this seedy presence. Is he a birthday clown? Is he a puppeteer? Is he dealing with stuffed animals? Is it a little piano? You start to wonder about this person who comes up to a kid on their birthday. You’re in another room and you don’t know that they’re interacting and it’s weird. He doesn’t abduct kids. We’ve seen that a thousand times. He’s kind of talking to kids. You start to get interested in it. When we decided to do another serial killer drama, we needed a villain. Long Legs said, ‘I’ll do it.’ We had someone in our drawer of ideas who said, ‘Coach, hire me,’ and Long Legs was the one.
The word “Longlegs” is creepy in itself, but I don’t understand why he would call himself that. Where did the name come from?
We writers love words. We love the sound and look and shape and feel of certain words. Sure, there’s a centipede-like, creepy aspect to this word, but it also feels so ’70s to me. It’s like a Led Zeppelin song or like a groovy word that someone would put on the side of a van. It feels like a vintage word that’s not used much anymore. This movie is in a weird place. You can’t fully understand it. It doesn’t fit in completely. And that’s fascinating to me, and it piques a curiosity that I think is important.
Your previous book, The Blackcoat’s Daughter, also dealt with Satanism, but this one takes it to another level. Why did you want to tackle Satanism again?
It’s not that I don’t take this baroque devil worship seriously. To me it’s a pretense. It’s like Halloween, where people dress up. It’s just ritual and pomp and circumstance and music and celebration and weirdness. The horror genre is about exploring things that we don’t understand. That’s really interesting and fascinating. I just tried to make something that would be interesting and enjoyable, especially for the horror audience. The horror audience puts up with a lot of bad stuff, they accept it because it’s necessary. They need their horror appetite satisfied. But sometimes you want to give them something that’s a little more manicured and curated for them.
There is a supernatural element to the Long Legs dolls. Can you explain how they actually work?
Yes, there is. But I won’t say it. It’s part of the devil’s playfulness. Wouldn’t it be amazing if you brought a doll to someone’s house and everyone went crazy? It’s kind of funny and weird. It’s like, “You screwed up and let him in. You didn’t have to sign that! Just because a nun brought it doesn’t mean you can bring her into your house.” There’s also a “I did it myself” vibe, which I think is kind of fun.
We don’t know Ruth’s religion, but she appears to be some form of Christianity. Did you have a specific religion in mind or were you intending to criticize it with the film?
I’m not religious. I don’t take religion seriously or not. I’m not in a position to dictate to people what they should believe or feel or where they should go to feel safe or guilty. It’s kind of funny sometimes that people are religious. Humans are funny, aren’t they? We’re all running around doing our own thing trying to stay above water. Even Ruth Harker has the last laugh at the concept of prayer. Prayer? Everybody prays. Everybody in the Middle East prays all the time. And when you use the words of the Bible, you get some good words. There are some really crazy, funky words in the Bible. “A beast rising out of the sea with ten horns and a head and a crown.” It’s amazing. Not to sound amateurish, but the Bible has a lot of really fun, silly words that are helpful for writers looking for words.
Did you always have that ending in mind? Was there a lighter ending to the film?
That was always the ending. The ending was always supposed to be tragic. The Devil wins again, on a smaller scale. One of the interesting things about using the Devil as a villain is that he never really sets out to take over the world. He’s always like, “I’m going to screw this person, break up this family, screw this kid, torture this priest.” He’s never, “I’m going to eat the Vatican.” To me, the Devil never gets that far. He’s a little more fun and playful than that. Lee Harker’s story ends with the ending of the movie. The last bullet she takes is the worst thing that could ever happen to her.
Killing off Longlegs before the film’s ending is a very unexpected moment. Was the intention to have him in the film for much longer?
We were very conscious of the references and we wanted to make a pop art piece. If we could steal or rip off a move from one of the great serial killer movies, that’s what we wanted to do. That’s what Seven is. Kevin Spacey had, I think, three or four scenes. He turns himself in, he’s in the thing, he ends up in the car. He’s always present, and that was the case with Cage. Like he’s got the thing. But when you get to the guy, it’s almost a hilarious moment. Of course, he’s very much in Seven, but I love the fact that John Doe turned himself in. We thought, well, stealing is not the right word, so to speak, but borrowing is closer to what we were doing.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
