‘Longlegs’ Director Osgood Perkins Explains ‘Explanation’ Ending, Those Satanic Dolls and Borrowing From ‘Se7en’

SPOILER ALERT: The story features major scenes from “Longlegs,” which is now playing in theaters.

Even before its release, critics and die-hard fans who saw director Osgood Perkins’ “Longlegs” lauded it as one of the darkest, most sinister films in recent memory. Now that the movie is finally in theaters, audience members can check for themselves, but it’s safe to say: The horror hype is real.

From Nicolas Cage’s performance as a clueless killer to the dark ending, “Longlegs” will leave even horror aficionados in awe. The murder mystery has many twists and turns, and moviegoers will never be able to predict how it ends.

Perkins sat down with him Variety discussing the ending, but those who want to enter the film unscathed should tread carefully. Are you ready?

It is finally revealed in “Longlegs” that FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) has a relationship with Cage’s killer. After being teased in the film’s introduction, Lee later realizes that Longlegs visited her home as a child on her birthday, as he does for all of his victims. Although, for some reason, he survived.

During his investigation, Lee connects the dots that Longlegs must have been involved in all of his heinous murders. But who is he? After the FBI picks him up, Longlegs tells Lee to talk to his mother Ruth (Alicia Witt). He then brutally smashes his face on a table after being interrogated, killing himself.

Lee heads to her mother’s house to find out the truth: She was Longlegs’ secret partner all along. After Longlegs visited Lee as a child, Ruth made a deal with him to protect her daughter. Ruth dressed as a nun and visited their families to drop off strange dolls as gifts from the church. Longlegs filled these dolls with supernatural, Satanic rumours, which sent the family into a mental crisis and convinced them to kill each other. Longlegs lived in the Harkers’ basement, and Lee’s doll gave him psychic abilities.

After Ruth destroys Lee’s doll and escapes, Lee pinpoints her mother’s next target: the home of FBI Agent Carter (Blair Underwood). It happens to be Carter’s daughter’s birthday, but Lee is too late. Ruth is already in the living room with a doll, and the Carter family is mentally disturbed. Agent Carter kills his wife in the kitchen, and before going after his daughter, Lee shoots his mother and breaks the mood. However, Lee runs out of bullets and the doll is still intact. The film ends with the haunting song “Kiss Satan!” from Longlegs, leaving the fate of the remaining characters unclear.

Where did the Longlegs character come from? Did you have him in mind and build the movie around him, or did you do a murder mystery and create this villain?

It was built around the character of Longlegs, who was a character who tried to fit into other projects I was working on. When you’re writing all the time and producing specs and nobody’s paying you or you don’t have the source material, you’re making shit all the time. You end up with a universe of things going around, and you’re trying to get them out and stick to them. Longlegs was an organization, this shabby – is it a birthday party? Am I an animator? Do you deal with stuffed animals? Are they small pianos? You start to wonder about this person who comes to your child on his birthday and you’re in the other room and you don’t know they’re interacting and it’s weird. He’s not kidnapping kids because we’ve seen that 1,000 times before. He talks to them in a certain way. You get curious about that. When I decided I was going to try an assassin style that was going to be something else, I needed a bad guy. Longlegs was like, “I’ll do it.” In your thought box, one of them says, “Put me in, coach.” And it goes into Longlegs.

The word “Longlegs” itself is scary, but we don’t get a reason why he calls himself that. Where does that name come from?

We writers just love words. We love how certain words sound and look and feel and feel. Yes, it’s got daddy long legs and a weird aspect to it, but it also feels very ’70s to me – it’s almost like a Led Zeppelin song or someone might have it on the side of their van, something strange like that. It sounds like an old word that people wouldn’t say much today. It put the film in a strange place. You don’t know how to fully understand it. It doesn’t fit perfectly, which is more interesting to me and creates a curiosity that I think is important.

Your previous film, “Blackcoat’s Daughter,” also featured Satanism, but this film takes it up a notch. What made you want to tackle that again?

All this Baroque devil worship, it’s not that I don’t take it seriously; for me, it’s window dressing. It’s like Halloween stuff, people dress up. It’s just celebration and pomp and circumstance and music and celebration and wonder. It’s everything the horror genre wants to be, this exploration of what we don’t understand. That is interesting and fascinating. I really tried to make something that would be visually appealing, especially for a nervous audience. Horror listeners put up with a lot of bad things and take them because they need to; they are in desperate need of repair. But every now and then you want to give them something that is already handmade and prepared for them.

Longlegs dolls have this supernatural element to them. Do you have an explanation of how they actually work?

I do, but I won’t say. It is part of the devil’s play. Wouldn’t it be amazing if you brought a doll into someone’s house and it made everyone go crazy. It’s funny and weird. It’s more like, “You tricked him and let him in. You didn’t have to sign up for that! Just because a monk brings it to you, doesn’t mean you let him enter your place with it.” There’s also that kind of “made it yourself” vibe, which I think is great.

We do not find Ruth’s religion, but it seems to be some form of Christianity. Did you have a particular religion in mind or did you intend the film to be a critique of it?

I am not a religious person. I don’t take religion seriously or seriously; it’s not my place to tell people what to believe or feel or where to go to feel safe or guilty or whatever they need. I think it’s funny sometimes that people give up. People are funny, right? We all run around doing our thing trying to stay afloat. Even Ruth Harker has the last laugh with that prayerful attitude. Like, prayers? Everyone is praying. Everyone in the Middle East is praying all the time. And by using things from the Bible, it just has a beautiful language to it. The Bible has crazy, funny language in it. “A beast rising out of the sea with 10 horns and heads and crowns.” It’s amazing. We shouldn’t be sophomoric about it, but the Bible has a lot of fun, silly words in it that help if you’re a writer looking for words.

Was that the end you always had in mind? Was there a light ending to the movie?

That was always the end. The ending was meant to be a tragedy. The devil wins again on a small scale. One of the great things about using the devil as your villain is that the devil doesn’t get to rule the world. The devil always feels like, “I’m just going to cheat with this person, I’m going to destroy this family, I’m going to defile this child, I’m going to torture this priest.” It’s never like, “I’m going to eat at the Vatican.” It never gets to that point with me and the devil. The devil is a bit more funny and playful than that. Lee Harker’s story ends with the end of the film. The last shot he fires is the worst thing that can happen to him.

Killing Longlegs before the end of the movie is an amazing moment. Have you ever planned to make him stay longer?

We were aware of our references and wanted to create a pop art piece. Often we could cry or steal from one of the great serial killer movies, we wanted to do it. It’s just “Se7en”. I think Kevin Spacey has three or four pictures, right? He gives up, gets into something and gets into the car and that’s where it ends. He’s always there, which we had with Cage, like this thing is, but once you get to the guy, it’s a little anticlimactic. Of course, he changes in the climax of “Se7en,” but I like the fact that John Doe has surrendered. We wanted to choose – “rip off” is not the right word – “borrowing” is very close to what we were doing.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.