Longlegs Is This Year's Creepiest Horror Flick (and It Was Inspired by the JonBenet Ramsey Case)

Photo byNeon

It’s not surprising that the son of Psycho’s Anthony Perkins knows how to scare people. What's unexpected is that Director Oz Perkins claims he’s not interested in psychopaths or fledgling law enforcement officers battling evil. Yet his latest film, Longlegs, is a darkly disturbing echo of classic serial killer films like Silence of the Lambs, Zodiac and Se7en. For the first time in a long while, I was genuinely creeped out by a movie.

Nicolas Cage as Longlegs.Photo byNeon

While most reviews laud Nicolas Cage’s powerhouse performance as Longlegs, a Satan-worshipping dollmaker, his character never felt truly demonic or scary for me. Cage’s acting is masterful, no doubt about it, but Longlegs’ unsettling wackiness didn’t ever give me goosebumps. He reminded me more of Heath Ledger’s Joker than Hannibal Lecter, the Zodiac Killer or Se7en’s John Doe. Likewise, the movie’s plot doesn’t live up to its predecessors' brilliance. There is a big reveal at the end but it’s not all that shocking.

That said, I still highly recommend the movie because it succeeds despite its shortcomings. The cinematography, with its slideshow vibe, deep red tones and wintry scenery, set me on edge from the beginning of the film to the end. There’s something about the 1970s that lends itself to creepiness (think The Exorcist, The Omen and even Stranger Things). From the opening scene, when a beat-up station wagon edges closer to a little girl in a washed-out house, I was hooked. Don’t even get me started on the hoarder-core interior of fledgling FBI agent Lee Harker's childhood home.

Photo byNeon

Another element that amps up the chill factor is the dolls. I’ve always found dolls a little eerie, especially those “Just Like Me” American Girl dolls everyone wanted back in the day. So I was intrigued and a little shocked to learn that Perkins based the story, in part, on a life-sized JonBenet Ramsey doll in a cardboard box found 15 feet from the girl’s body in her basement. I’ve followed that case for years and never heard about the doll, dressed in pageant attire, until I read an interview where Perkins--who wrote the screenplay--discusses his inspiration for the Longlegs story.

The murder took place approaching Christmas, and one present that the parents had gotten for JonBenét was a life-size replica doll of herself, wearing one of her pageant dresses,” he explains. “It was in a cardboard box in the basement, 15 feet from where she was killed, and there was something so insane about that, I’d cataloged it away.” -Oz Perkins on his inspiration for the story

Perhaps the creepiest thing of all is the movie’s Mansonesque premise, which has the fathers of the families actually commit the murders. We know this from the outset, just as we know Longlegs somehow goads the men into brutally killing their wives and kids without ever setting foot in the homes. Like the Zodiac killer, this psychopath leaves calling cards-–rambling coded messages that quote The Bible and reference the devil.

Photo byNeon

As for the acting, it's spot on for this type of movie. Maika Monroe expertly captures Harker’s deep discomfort as a psychically gifted outlier with a traumatic past. She reminded me more of genius Aspie Lisbeth Salander than Clarice Starling and I loved that (not to say Clarice isn't one of my all-time favorite characters: she is).

But it was Alicia Witt’s performance as Lee’s mother that resonated with me. Witt has said she based her character on her own past, as well as her parents' deaths, and that catharsis works in her favor. She taps into something truly dark and her character is more unsettling than Cage’s.

"When I did get the role, I had about six weeks. I journaled, I made playlists, I thought about her thought process, what she experienced as a child and what her darkness was," Witt explained. "By the time I got to set, I could let it all go and discover what she was going to do and say. It's for that reason that I'm not watching the movie. It's what came out of me that I don't want to see." -Witt on her role as Ruth Harker

Longlegs will soon be available on streaming services but I’m glad I saw it in the theater. There’s something darkly wonderful about watching a horror movie in a crowded cinema on a hot summer night.

I went to the opening show in my area and most seats were full, to the point where the only spaces left were in the front row. While I’m happy to stream anything and everything, there’s nothing like spending a couple of hours in an air-conditioned theater with some popcorn and a soda.