Longlegs

Longlegs
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Osgood Perkins
Written by	Osgood Perkins
Produced by	Dan Kagan Brian Kavanaugh-Jones Nicolas Cage Dave Caplan Chris Ferguson
Starring	Maika Monroe Blair Underwood Alicia Witt Nicolas Cage
Cinematography	Andrés Arochi
Edited by	Greg Ng Graham Fortin
Music by	Zilgi
Production companies	C2 Motion Picture Group Traffic. Range Oddfellows Saturn Films
Distributed by	Neon
Release date	July 12, 2024 (2024-07-12)
Running time	101 minutes[1]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	<$10 million[2]
Box office	$70.4 million[3][4]

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 acclaim from critics and grossed $70 million worldwide.

In 1970s Oregon, a little 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 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 her supervisor, 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 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 murdering 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 life 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, revealed to be where Longlegs had been secretly living, and hears a demonic voice on the phone warning her about Carter'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 Carter kills his wife, 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 and tells Ruby they need to leave, but both remain frozen, staring at the doll.

In November 2022, it was reported that Osgood Perkins would direct from a script he wrote.^[6] Nicolas Cage signed on to produce (under his Saturn Films banner) and star in the horror thriller film as a serial killer.^[7][8] In February 2023, Maika Monroe signed on as FBI agent Lee Harker.^[7] The following month, Alicia Witt and Blair Underwood joined the cast.^[9]

Deadline Hollywood stated that Dave Caplan's C2 Motion Picture Group financed the film for under $10 million.^[2] Principal photography was scheduled to take place in Vancouver, British Columbia, from January 16 to February 23, 2023.^[10][8]

The film's soundtrack was conceived by Zilgi, a pseudonym for Elvis Perkins (the brother of the film's director),^[11] credited as composer of the score compositions on the digital soundtrack album.^[12] There were contributing tracks by sound designer Eugenio Battagila and Melody Carrillo with Elizabeth Wight. The soundtrack was released on July 12, 2024 on streaming platforms and on vinyl.^[13]

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).^[14] 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.'"^[15] The film's total marketing budget was under $10 million, focusing on digital content and not having television ads.^[2]

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.^[16][17] 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.^[2] 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.^[18]

In February 2023, Neon acquired the film's North American rights at the European Film Market.^[19] The film had a screening at Los Angeles's Beyond Fest on May 31, 2024.^[20] Longlegs premiered at The Egyptian Theatre Hollywood in Los Angeles on July 8, 2024.^[21]

Longlegs held several special screenings across the United States throughout July 8-13, 2024.^[22] This also included a 'parent-free' RSVP screening at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Brooklyn, New York on July 12, 2024.^[2] It was released in North America and the United Kingdom on July 12, 2024.^[8][23]

As of July 29, 2024^[update], Longlegs has grossed $59.7 million in the United States and Canada, and $10.7 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $70.4 million.^[3][4]

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.^[24] 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.^[25] It went on to debut to $22.4 million, finishing second at the box office behind holdover Despicable Me 4.^[26] 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.^[2] In its second weekend, the film made $12 million, a drop of 46.6% to finish in fourth.^[27][28] In its third weekend, it became Neon's highest-grossing film after surpassing their earnings for 2019's Parasite ($53.37 million).^[29]

The film premiered to critical acclaim.^[a] On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 86% of 250 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.6/10. The website's consensus reads: "Saturated in disquieting mood while leveraging a nightmarishly gonzo performance by Nicolas Cage, Longlegs is a satanic horror that effectively instills panic."^[35] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 77 out of 100, based on 52 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.^[36] 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.^[37]

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".^[38] 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".^[39] Vanity Fair's Richard Lawson thought the film was disappointing, 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".^[40]

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".^[41] 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."^[42] Bill Bria of /Film called Longlegs "the most terrifying horror movie of 2024," noting the film's "rock n' roll spirit".^[43]

• List of horror films of 2024

• Longlegs at IMDb