The short shelf life of “Longlegs”

Edwanike Harbour and Jason Fuhrman consider the issues that define and afflict Osgood Perkins’ recent horror hit.

In our “Cinemails” column, two writers exchange viewing notes on a recent theatrical or streaming experience and/or dig into something more broadly philosophical about the movies.

By all accounts, Osgood Perkins’ latest horror-thriller, Longlegs, is one of this year’s biggest original movies. With a current domestic box office take of over $71 million, it has sustained on Madison area screens—from Marcus, to AMC, to Flix Brewhouse—for over five weeks now since its wide July 12 release.

But was the build-up to the film truly satisfying, and is its artistic and cultural staying power in sync with that financial success? For this second attempt at “cinemails,” I asked two of our contributors, Edwanike Harbour and Jason Fuhrman, to comment on and trade thoughts on a range of topics surrounding Perkins’ breakout summer hit—including its cryptic marketing campaign, which promoted an unparalleled level of creepiness. Did Edwanike and Jason see this campaign as clever or gimmicky, and how do they feel about horror-film marketing as a whole these days?

What did Perkins get right and wrong in his approach to mixing subgenres of horror? What underrated films out there potentially did it better? Other period pieces released in the past six months, like Late Night With The Devil (2023) and MaXXXine (2024), have similarly tapped into “satanic panic” themes. Is this a false trend, a recycled revival, or are the films’ commentaries actually tapping into something socially or politically of the moment?

How did Edwanike and Jason regard Maika Monroe’s stoic lead performance and Nicolas Cage’s white-knuckle reveal? Even if they didn’t ultimately care for Longlegs‘ approach and execution, did it achieve something in particular as a movie that they hope other movies will take to heart and develop better? What would they like to see more of in the horror genre moving forward? —Grant Phipps, Film Editor

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Edwanike Harbour to Jason Fuhrman

subject: Longlegs 

There was so much buzz that I personally encountered some weeks into the lead up of Longlegs. Besides the enigmatic trailers and stills, I heard from friends and read social media stating this was one of the scariest films to be released in decades. Admittedly, horror is not my favorite genre, but if I hear of a well-crafted, elevated horror film the likes of which A24—The Blackcoat’s Daughter (Wisconsin Film Festival 2016) or Talk To Me (2023)—would release, I can bear sitting with my heart pounding for the better part of 90 minutes.

Kiernan Shipka’s performance in The Blackcoat’s Daughter (also written and directed by Perkins) was the mainstay that kept me engaged the most. Perkins’ direction and stylistic choices here were so much more subtle and understated, and that allowed the atmospheric build-up to pull you in more as a viewer. Nicolas Cage’s performance as Cobble in Longlegs was too cartoon-supervillain for my taste. Ironically, Cage’s overacting was not a good choice for this role. Several times when he was on screen, I felt more removed from the film.

I have to say, Longlegs was a huge misfire for me based on the marketing campaign in addition to a lot of the word-of-mouth buzz. I appreciate some of the homage to the “satanic panic” themes from the ’80s. We are seeing that come up a lot more with yet another Exorcist entry (the failed Exorcist: Believer last October) and Late Night With The Devil. What’s old will always be new again. Arguably, horror’s heyday was in the late ’70s and early ’80s, so I am not surprised to see directors like Osgood Perkins, who is the son of screen legend Anthony Perkins, reach back in that smorgasbord of cinematic delights. It seems as if Perkins was reaching for an arthouse Silence Of The Lambs (1991) and he fell woefully short in several ways.

Part of what makes an effective campaign, or at the basic level, cutting a trailer for any film is showing just enough to entice the audience to see it without giving away big plot twists (M. Night Shyamalan has blown this recently.) A lot of the marketing to Longlegs set up this intense, shocking, hyper-violent horror flick, and it simply didn’t come close to delivering on its promises. There was a lot of unintentional humor, where Perkins was clearly trying too hard. I sat there in the theater waiting for something to really stand out for me, and there was nothing really there.

I don’t know if you saw Paranormal Activity 3 back in 2011, but one brilliant thing they did for its promotion that a lot of people in the audience didn’t pick up on (at least in my viewing) was that absolutely none of the footage in the trailer was in the film. Not a single scene. I remember sitting there bracing for those moments, and they never came, which actually made the movie scarier. There was no way to anticipate anything.

There were too many “deus ex machina” moments for me in Longlegs, or rather “diaboli ex machina” moments. I am all for having the audience do a little legwork (*wink*), but I can only suspend belief so many times. Protagonist and young FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) was just naturally blessed with this preternatural sense of how to mystically find unsubs and crack codes, which were unbroken for decades with little to no explanation. Even the film’s title has been revealed to be, because the writer thought the name just sounded creepy in a ’70s sort of way. I never felt that sense of dread or panic the way I felt during Barbarian (2022), for example, which had a far superior marketing campaign. Even the atmosphere of the original Silence Of The Lambs was decidedly absent here.

In what ways do you feel Longlegs‘ distributor, Neon, succeeded in their marketing campaign?

Jason Fuhrman to Edwanike Harbour

re: Longlegs 

I always try to not have any expectations when I watch a film, but I had been highly anticipating Longlegs for months prior to its release. Like you, I found that the tantalizingly cryptic marketing campaign led me to believe that this would be one of the scariest horror movies in recent memory. While I was not necessarily looking forward to some kind of grueling cinematic ordeal, I inwardly hoped that Longlegs would prove to be so disturbing and obscure as to render it almost unwatchable. I am rarely impressed with contemporary horror films, but I feel like I’m just continually looking for something that will truly shake me to my core and demonstrate the potential of cinema to inspire bewilderment—raw, unmediated reaction. Such films are few and far between, but a really scary horror movie can be a powerful, life-changing, and cathartic experience. I would consider myself a fairly adventurous cinephile, so I tend to gravitate toward filmmakers that push the envelope of cinema. I really wanted Longlegs to be this type of film, but I have to admit, it also didn’t hit the mark for me. 

Although I’m inclined to agree that Longlegs was a misfire, I actually enjoyed it for the most part. The first two-thirds of the film were particularly enthralling, and I loved the ominous atmosphere, intricately layered sound design, and cutting-edge visual style. It certainly felt as though Perkins was attempting to make a modern, edgy arthouse version of Silence Of The Lambs, but with a supernatural twist. Alas, the film’s expository final chapter turned me off, and Nicolas Cage’s over-the-top performance as the titular satanic serial killer just didn’t work for me.

Of course, I could not help but think of David Lynch and Twin Peaks, because the film follows a troubled, highly intuitive FBI special agent investigating the evil lurking beneath the surface of an idyllic Pacific Northwest town in the ’90s. And the inspired casting of Alicia Witt (who plays Gersten Hayward in Twin Peaks) as the mother of the main character felt like a deliberate reference to Lynch’s popular avant-garde television murder mystery soap opera fever dream. Despite the dissonance of Cage’s performance as the villain Cobble, Maika Monroe delivered an elegant, understated portrayal of Agent Lee Harker. While I found much to admire in Longlegs, the film was a mixed bag. Ultimately, it felt like a pastiche of more effective classic horror films and an empty, albeit stylish, genre exercise. 

(I saw Longlegs at Marcus Palace in Sun Prairie and attended a late-night showing on the Ultra Screen, which seemed appropriate. Being a Magical Movie Rewards member and having just observed my birthday, I happily redeemed my annual complimentary large popcorn. Knowing very little about the plot of the film ahead of time, I found it ironically and grimly humorous to be enjoying my celebratory bucket of white starchy kernels as Nic Cage unexpectedly sang a fairly deranged version of “Happy Birthday to You” onscreen—ostensibly for my benefit. Good times.) 

Along with recent horror flicks like the “found footage” spectacle Late Night With The Devil and the campy noir ’80s period thriller MaXXXine, Longlegs exemplifies a current trend in cinema revisiting the so-called “satanic panic” (baseless conspiracy theories and global hysteria about satanic cults committing mass ritual abuse that spread throughout the ’80s and late ’90s). Horror movies tap into the cultural zeitgeist, while providing an outlet for our deepest collective fears and anxieties. Naturally, pictures about satanic murderers and demonic possession were popular at that time, and now Hollywood is blatantly recycling these familiar themes and images. I would like to think that the sudden resurgence of interest in the satanic panic has some kind of vague connection to our regressive political climate, the slow descent into fascism, and the rise of white Christian nationalism, but mostly these movies just feel trite, derivative, and predictable. I’m not sure whether or not these filmmaker are consciously offering any social or political commentary, but I suppose lurid depictions of exaggerated religious fears of imaginary evils are timely once again.

I think that Neon succeeded in its marketing campaign insofar as the trailer and unusual ads leading up to the film’s release compelled me to buy a ticket to Longlegs on the biggest screen possible and persuade several friends to join me. As a viewer with a taste for transgressive and experimental fare, I felt like I actually had no choice but to see this movie in a theater at the earliest opportunity. Despite knowing almost nothing about Longlegs beforehand, I became mildly obsessed with it. During the initial days of its release, I’m pretty sure every single acquaintance I encountered asked me if I had seen the film yet. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, even though I didn’t even really know what it was. If the intention of marketing is to infiltrate your consciousness and sell a product, then I would consider this an extremely successful campaign.

Edwanike Harbour to Jason Fuhrman

re: re: Longlegs

As Longlegs grossed $58.6 million in the first three weeks of its opening (and over $87 million worldwide at time of this reply’s publication), I guess you are right. It has been the most successful indie horror film of the last 10 years. So, in terms of getting people to fill the seats, other small production companies might want to take note. Again, what it suggested it would deliver fell short not only of my expectations, but even for a solid horror flick that someone would try and catch on Shudder over a weekend.

As far as the films feeling derivative, from what I have seen, I agree. The Hollywood trend of trying to recycle everything that was previously successful needs to stop in general. But there was so much with the premise of Perkins’ recent film that could have been executed better. In other words, the ingredients were there, but the underdeveloped script and relying on a hyper-maniacal Nicolas Cage performance was not a recipe for success.

What I would like to see is a straight-up horror movie that is not a metaphor for some form of mental illness (Neil Marshall’s The Descent or Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook, which did scare the bejeesus out of me), a meditation on grief (Ari Aster’s Midsommar, even if I absolutely loved this movie), or generational trauma (Aster’s Hereditary, which I also loved, but you see the pattern here). Ditch the metaphors and just present a character or concept that exists only to initiate pure, unadulterated fear in the viewer without the ABC afterschool lesson.

Again, I think Barbarian did the best job of this in recent memory. Once the metaphor reveals itself, it’s like the mystery is unraveled, and I am left wanting more. I want to keep guessing even as the film approaches the end. Are there any films that you feel were more successful in delivering the type of film Perkins wanted to create with Longlegs?

Jason Fuhrman to Edwanike Harbour

re: re: re: Longlegs 

Longlegs might not have delivered on the initial promise of its bizarre viral marketing campaign, but this feels like a familiar strategy of horror cinema in general. Scary movies are frequently so hyped up and sensationalized that they create impossibly high expectations from the viewers. If such films were half as disturbing and intense as they are advertised to be, then they most likely would not get made in the first place.

I also think that horror has more of a built-in audience than other genres (with the possible exception of superhero movies). Most horror fans I know want to see every new movie that comes out. While I don’t necessarily consider myself a diehard horror fan, I’m always eager to watch whatever fucked-up shit A24 or Neon has unleashed in theaters.

As long as there is a reliable target market for horror movies, studios will continue to churn them out and employ any tactics necessary to fill theater seats. Perhaps I’m a jaded, cynical cinephile who has just seen too much, but more often than not, I find myself disappointed by horror films. I still can’t help but feel that the marketing for Longlegs was thoroughly misleading. Then again, what did I really expect? I also think the film had a lot of potential and could have been executed more effectively. The contrived plot and overreliance on Cage’s gonzo performance undermined what at first felt like an unsettling, exquisitely crafted mood piece breathing new life into horror. I suppose Perkins’ film ultimately confirms the old idiom: the devil really is in the details after all.

Ari Aster’s sumptuous, sun-drenched anthropological horror feast Midsommar remains one of my favorite scary movies of the 21st century. I can’t think of a single horror film in the past decade that has had that kind of an impact on me. (I saw it four times in the theater, including the extended director’s cut.) However, I also think Midsommar is actually a black comedy dressed up as a horror film. For me, that’s a perfect example of a completely fresh and inventive take on horror that simply works on every level.

To be honest, the only horror movie I’ve seen on the big screen in the past 25 years that genuinely terrified me was Gaspar Noé’s controversial neo-noir revenge thriller Irréversible (2002). That was an unforgettable, visceral, and borderline traumatic experience. I have never felt such an overwhelming sense of dread and fear in a movie theater. I think that Irréversible achieves precisely what you described, but it is so challenging, extreme, and difficult to watch that even the most jaded moviegoer would probably be wary of it.

Personally, I don’t really mind horror films that employ metaphors for mental illness, as long as the concept is well-executed. But I think that horror is generally most effective when it elicits a visceral reaction from the viewer. For me, Barbarian did not provoke “pure, unadulterated fear” the way Irréversible did. But everyone has different filters and that’s what is so interesting about cinema.

Brandon Cronenberg’s recent science-fiction body horror film Infinity Pool (2023) feels like a more successful example of the type of psychological experience Perkins was possibly trying to create. While the narratives are very different, both movies are mysterious, headily atmospheric, and visually striking with an undercurrent of nihilistic excess. Infinity Pool immediately plunged me into its strange world, but unlike Longlegs, Cronenberg’s film kept me entranced throughout. I left the theater exhilarated and in a daze, with a sense that I had seen something truly original.