Longlegs

Longlegs is a 2024 American horror thriller film written and directed by Osgood Perkins. It stars Maika Monroe and Nicolas Cage, who also produced the film through his Saturn Films production company. The cast also features Blair Underwood, Alicia Witt, Michelle Choi-Lee, Dakota Daulby, and Kiernan Shipka in supporting roles. The film follows an FBI agent tasked with tracking down an occultist serial killer responsible for murdering multiple families throughout the state of Oregon, without having been physically present in the crimes.
Longlegs was released in the United States by Neon on July 12, 2024. It received positive reviews from critics and has grossed over $85 million worldwide, becoming Neon's highest grossing film to-date domestically.
== Plot ==
In 1970s Oregon, a young girl with a Polaroid camera follows a mysterious voice and encounters an erratic man in pale makeup. 
In the 1990s, FBI agent Lee Harker, who exhibits possible clairvoyance, is assigned by her supervisor William Carter to a case involving a series of murder-suicides in Oregon. Each case involves a father killing his family and himself, leaving behind a letter with Satanic coding signed "Longlegs", whose handwriting belongs to none of the family members. Lee discovers that each family had a 9-year-old daughter born on the 14th of the month, the murders all occurred within six days before or after the birthday itself, and the murders form an occult triangle symbol on a calendar, with one date missing. While talking to her mother Ruth, Lee receives a coded birthday card from Longlegs, warning her that revealing the source of the code will lead to her mother's murder.
Following a clue, Lee and Carter find a doll with a high-energy orb inside. Despite Carter's skepticism of the supernatural, Lee theorizes that Longlegs uses these orbs to possess people as each family received a similar doll. After visiting Carrie, the sole survivor of Longlegs's attacks, who was visited previously by someone using Lee's name, Carter suspects Lee's connection to Longlegs. Discovering that Ruth had filed a police report of an intruder approaching Lee on her 9th birthday, Carter encourages Lee to talk to Ruth, directing her to childhood belongings where she finds a Polaroid of the pale-faced man, revealing Longlegs to be the man who had visited a young Lee in the 1970s. Lee submits the photo, leading to Longlegs's arrest. Realizing the missing date is that day, Lee fears an accomplice. In the interrogation room, Longlegs claims to serve "the man downstairs" and hints at Ruth's involvement before killing himself.
Agent Browning drives Lee to her mother's home, where Lee witnesses Ruth murder Browning with a shotgun. Ruth then destroys a doll resembling young Lee, causing Lee to lose consciousness. Lee sees that Ruth has been Longlegs's accomplice since Lee's childhood. Longlegs forced Ruth to choose between her daughter's death and his bidding, leading her to comply and spare Lee. Longlegs has lived in the Harker basement, creating Satanic dolls that Ruth, posing as a nun, delivered to families, causing them to kill each other. Lee's doll blocked her memories of Longlegs while influencing her with his magic.
Lee awakens in the basement and hears a demonic voice on the phone warning her about William's daughter Ruby's ninth birthday party, which had been scheduled for that day. Lee rushes to save the Carters, whose deaths would complete Longlegs's triangle. She finds the family already possessed, with Ruth having delivered the doll. After William kills his wife Anna, Lee shoots him to protect Ruby. Ruth attacks with a dagger, forcing Lee to kill her. Lee tries to destroy the doll but runs out of ammunition. She tells Ruby they need to leave, but Ruby remains frozen, staring at the doll.
== Cast ==
== Production ==
In November 2022, it was reported that Osgood Perkins would direct from a script he wrote. Nicolas Cage signed on to produce (under his Saturn Films banner) and star in the horror thriller film as a serial killer. In February 2023, Maika Monroe signed on as FBI agent Lee Harker. The following month, Alicia Witt and Blair Underwood joined the cast.
Deadline Hollywood stated that Dave Caplan's C2 Motion Picture Group financed the film for under $10 million. Principal photography was scheduled to take place in Vancouver, British Columbia, from January 16 to February 23, 2023.
== Music ==
The film's soundtrack was conceived by Zilgi, a pseudonym for Elvis Perkins (the brother of the film's director), credited as composer of the score compositions on the digital soundtrack album. There were contributing tracks by sound designer Eugenio Battagila and Melody Carrillo with Elizabeth Wight. The soundtrack was released on July12, 2024 on streaming platforms and on vinyl.
== Marketing ==
To promote the film, Neon utilized guerilla marketing tactics similar to those that led to the box office success of The Blair Witch Project (1999). Perkins credited Neon for the film's marketing, saying the studio "really responded strongly to the movie, the raw materials of the movie really excited them, the way it looks, the way it feels, the way it sounds. They asked me early on, 'Do we have your permission to kind of go nuts?' And I said, 'What else are we doing here? Go for it. Do your thing.'" The film's total marketing budget was under $10 million, focusing on digital content and not having television ads.
Promotional materials included teaser trailers that first appeared in January 2024 and did not mention the title until February, building speculation through clips, images, and coded messages using symbology created for the film. Neon posted 11 videos on YouTube leading up to release, accumulating 30 million views. A trailer was also attached to every horror film released in theaters since January 2024. A paid advertisement featuring a cipher was published in the Seattle Times on June 14, a reference to Zodiac Killer. The ad directed readers to an in-universe website detailing murders committed in the film.
== Release ==
In February 2023, Neon acquired the film's North American rights at the European Film Market. The film had a screening at Los Angeles's Beyond Fest on May 31, 2024. Longlegs premiered at The Egyptian Theatre Hollywood in Los Angeles on July 8, 2024.
Longlegs held several special screenings across the United States throughout July 8-13, 2024. This also included a 'parent-free' RSVP screening at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Brooklyn, New York on July 12, 2024. It was released in North America and the United Kingdom on July 12, 2024.
== Reception ==
===Box office===
, Longlegs has grossed $68.9 million in the United States and Canada, and $16.7	million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $85.6 million.
In the United States and Canada, Longlegs was released alongside Fly Me to the Moon, and was projected to gross $7–9 million from 2,510 theaters in its opening weekend. After making $10 million on its first day (including $3 million from Thursday night previews, both records for Neon), weekend estimates were raised to $20–23 million. It went on to debut to $22.4 million, finishing second at the box office behind holdover Despicable Me 4. The opening marked the best opening weekend for Neon and the biggest total for an original 2024 horror film. It was Monroe's best domestic opening as lead (excluding 2016's Independence Day: Resurgence, for which she was billed) and Cage's first live-action film to open above $20 million since Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance in 2012. In its second weekend, the film made $12 million, a drop of 46.6% to finish in fourth. In its third weekend, it became Neon's highest-grossing film after surpassing their earnings for 2019's Parasite ($53.37 million) and added $6.8 million.
===Critical response===
The film premiered to critical acclaim. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale, while those polled by PostTrak gave it a 70% overall positive score, with an average 3 out of 5 stars.
David Rooney writing for The Hollywood Reporter praised the film, saying "It might be argued that he stirs too many elements into the mix here — crime procedural, occult mystery, mind manipulation, Satanic worship, scary dolls, a Faustian bargain and a 'nun' not fit for any convent. But Longlegs is [Perkins'] most fully realized and relentlessly effective film to date". Bob Strauss of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote: "Most impressive is how Perkins blends psychological and supernatural horror in a manner not quite seen before. Longlegs is a conjuring of dark, poetic cinema where the devil is definitely in the details". Vanity Fair Richard Lawson expressed disappointment in the film, writing "Longlegs is stylish but vacuous, a prettily foreboding picture with nothing behind it. As Hannibal Lecter might say, it's a well scrubbed, hustling rube with a little taste".
J. Hurtado of Screen Anarchy declared Longlegs "a masterpiece; an unholy, horrifying confluence of high art and anxiety, a film in which every frame is a nightmare, and it's beautiful". Writing for Bloody Disgusting, Meagan Navarro praised Longlegs performances and atmosphere, concluding, "Longlegs is as stylish as it is timeless, dripping with claustrophobic dread and rot." Bill Bria of /Film called Longlegs "the most terrifying horror movie of 2024," noting the film's "rock n' roll spirit".
== External links ==
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== References ==
Category:2024 films
Category:films starring Maika Monroe
Category:films starring Lauren Acala
Category:films starring Nicolas Cage
Category:films starring Blair Underwood
Category:films starring Alicia Witt
Category:films starring Michelle Choi-Lee
Category:films starring Dakota Daulby
Category:films starring Kiernan Shipka
Category:films starring Maila Hosie
Category:films starring Jason Day
Category:films starring Lisa Chandler
Category:films starring Ava Kelders
Category:films starring Rryla McIntosh
Category:films starring Carmel Amit
Category:films starring Peter James Bryant
Category:2024 horror thriller films
Category:2024 independent films
Category:2020s serial killer films
Category:American horror thriller films
Category:American psychological horror films
Category:American psychological thriller films
Category:American serial killer films
Category:American supernatural horror films
Category:American supernatural thriller films
Category:American crime thriller films
Category:Crime horror films
Category:English-language horror thriller films
Category:Fiction about matricide
Category:Films about birthdays
Category:Films about dolls
Category:Films about the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Category:Films about filicide
Category:Films about mother–daughter relationships
Category:Films about Satanism
Category:Films about uxoricide
Category:Films directed by Oz Perkins
Category:Films produced by Nicolas Cage
Category:Films set in Oregon 
Category:Films set on farms
Category:Films shot in Vancouver
Category:Neon (company) films
Category:Saturn Films films
Category:Films set in the 1990s
Category:Films set in the 1970s