Why is Neon making such a mystery out of its new horror movie Longlegs? Perhaps because cryptic marketing with hints of realism has worked for other movies in the past. It seems to be effective because people are uneasy, but remain curious about the film, creating hype even with its ambiguousness.
Longlegs is directed by Oz Perkins who has made people feel uneasy before. His 2015 The Blackcoat’s Daughter was an atmospheric slow-burn, and his 2020 film Gretel & Hansel took that feeling and enhanced it with stylish camerawork.
Before Gretel & Hansel was released, iHorror talked to Perkins (going by Osgood at the time) about why his films blur the lines of what fans think of as a “traditional horror movie”:
“I think that what I am excited to do is bring the humanist quality back to horror movies and horror stories; the sort of mournfulness of what it’s like to lose, what it’s like to not understand, what it’s like to have your experience clouded, what’s hidden from us. It’s much more about what’s hidden and what’s waiting as opposed to what’s assaulting us at all times.”
Just by looking at the teaser for Longlegs we can see that he is putting that moviemaking philosophy to work. It’s a single photo of what appears to be a family, maybe in the 1980s, and a phone call between a mysterious voice and a police dispatcher. “That is not my daughter,” the voice says cutting to another old photo of her long legs outstretched across the floor.
From what we have read, the film stars Nic Cage as a serial killer being pursued by an FBI agent named Lee Harker (Maika Monroe), but as Harker gets further and further into her investigations they take, “unexpected turns, revealing evidence of the occult. Harker discovers a personal connection to the killer and must stop him before he strikes again.” The film doesn’t have an official release date but is expected sometime in 2024.
