'There’s No Serial Killer In That': Longlegs' Director Asked His Cast And Crew To Watch Some Pretty Unexpected Movies, But It Worked

Watching the new horror film Longlegs , you can pick up on some of its movie DNA – from Silence Of The Lambs to Se7en to The Shining – but the larger truth is that is that it’s a unique cinematic experience. While unfurling a story that sees the FBI on the hunt for a dangerous serial killer, it establishes a foreboding and powerful atmosphere that is not only a constant, palpable presence while watching the work but stays with you days later. It’s unlike anything audiences have seen… why is why it makes sense to a certain degree that writer/director Osgood Perkins took in a lot of random inspiration and made a lot of strange recommendations to his cast and crew.

With Longlegs making its debut in theaters this weekend following weeks full of positive buzz , I had the pleasure of interviewing Osgood Perkins and star Maika Monroe last week during the film’s virtual press day. I opened the conversation asking Perkins about establishing the special atmosphere of the movie and what he watched to stimulate his creativity, and he explained that he purposefully didn’t go about watching a bunch of serial killer features in the writing and development of his own entry to the subgenre. Said the filmmaker,

So what were the kinds of things that Osgood Perkins had cast and crew watch? As he described it, it was all about having “an adventure in good taste.” Rather than specifically draw ideas from movies that are of a kind with Longlegs (a.k.a. part of the same genre and subgenre), he instead suggested the dark family drama of John Cassavetes’ A Woman Under The Influence and the filmography of Oscar-nominated great Gus Van Sant. Said Perkins,

Set in Oregon in the 1990s, Longlegs follows young FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) as she gets enlisted in the mission to track down a psychopath who has spent years following a specific pattern killing families. The strange modus operandi sees the film’s eponymous killer (Nicolas Cage) somehow influencing normal people to lose their minds and murder each other, and Harker has to find out both who this stranger is and how he does what he does.

Explaining his personal writing process, Osgood Perkins said that he didn’t really find himself aiming at particular works in the development of the script, and instead, he just poured everything from himself into Longlegs . Or as he put it:

Co-staring Blair Underwood and Alicia Witt, Longlegs has earned raves from critics , with many already calling it the best horror films of the year, and it’s in limited release now. For a look ahead at everything that is heading to streaming and theaters in the coming weeks and months, check out our 2024 Movie Release Calendar .