Neon has done a great job of promoting the upcoming horror film Longlegs while also keeping the story’s secrets concealed. Although multiple teaser trailers and posters have made their way online, we still don’t know a whole lot about this movie, beyond the fact that it’s scheduled to reach theatres on July 12th. But if you want to know exactly how much we do know about it, just keep scrolling down, because we have compiled a list of Everything We Know About Longlegs.
DIRECTOR
Longlegs, which is said to be “in the vein of classic Hollywood psychological thrillers”, is the latest genre project from director Osgood Perkins – who, yes, is the son of actor Anthony Perkins, best remembered for his performance as Norman Bates in the Alfred Hitchcock classic Psycho. The younger Perkins has been building a solid career of his own, though, with his previous directorial efforts including the films The Blackcoat’s Daughter (a.k.a. February), I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, and Gretel & Hansel, as well as an episode of the recent revival of The Twilight Zone. He has also worked on the screenplays for the thriller Removal, the crime thriller Cold Comes the Night, and the horror film The Girl in the Photographs.
CAST
For many, the most eye-catching thing about Longlegs is the cast. Genre regular Maika Monroe, who has been seen in the likes of It Follows, The Guest, Independence Day: Resurgence, Tau, Villains, The Stranger, Watcher, and God Is a Bullet, stars as FBI Agent Lee Harker, a gifted new recruit assigned to the unsolved case of an elusive serial killer. As the case takes complex turns, unearthing evidence of the occult, Harker discovers a personal connection to the merciless killer and must race against time to stop him before he claims the lives of another innocent family.
That elusive serial killer is played by the legendary Nicolas Cage – and I’m sure a whole lot of people are going to be watching this movie just to get the chance to watch Cage play a serial killer. Also in the cast are Alicia Witt (Urban Legend, Fright Night Lights, Justified, Twin Peaks, The Exorcist) and Blair Underwood (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., L.A. Law, Dear White People, American Crime Story, Bad Hair). Who Witt and Underwood are playing, we don’t know for sure.
Cage is also producing Longlegs through his company Saturn Films, which recently had success with The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent and Pig. Also producing are Dan Kagan, Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, Dave Caplan, and Chris Ferguson. Jason Cloth and Fred Berger of Automatik serve as executive producers with John Friedberg of Black Bear International.
POSSESSED GEPETTO
One of the most intriguing things we’ve heard about Longlegs is a description Cage gave to genre icon John Carpenter when Document Journal had the two sit down for a conversation. Cage told Carpenter the film is “about a character who’s hearing voices. It’s kind of like a possessed Geppetto, who’s making these dolls…” at which point Carpenter cut him off to laugh and say, “I like it. Possessed Geppetto. Man, oh man.”
TEASERS AND POSTERS
The teasers and posters have given fans plenty of images and occult symbols to pore over and try to decipher, if they are so inclined. Cage may be playing a homicidal possessed Gepetto, but he’s not the only one we’ve seen committing violent acts in these previews, so there’s definitely more going on here than a simple “FBI agent tracks down a killer” story. The posters feature things like an injured nun, a bunch of covered corpses, a young girl being creeped on outsider her home, and a woman cutting her own stomach open. These posters can be seen below, along with the captions Neon sent with them.
The teaser trailer came with its own creepy message: “You’ve got the teeth of the hydra upon you.” Neon revealed the release date by telling us, “The man downstairs is coming July 12.”
And that’s everything we know about Longlegs as of right now. Are you looking forward to this movie? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
Here’s the latest teaser poster, unveiled on May 16th:
You could have made nice with me. But you didn’t. And that has led to all of this.