This story contains heavy spoilers for Longlegs. Osgood Perkins’ nightmarish new horror sensation Longlegs begins with a lyric from the 1971 hit “Get It On (Bang a Gong)” by the glam-rock band T. Rex: “You've got the teeth of the hydra upon you / You're dirty, sweet, and you're my girl.” Their music opens and closes the film, harkening back to the Satanic Panic conspiracy that rock music featured subliminal messages—but it's the connotations of girlishness and impurity that crawl under your skin in that first moment, and throughout the film.
Perkins’ new film (released by NEON on July 12) is largely about the stories our parents tell us, but also seemingly has a feminist horror bent. Not only is Longlegs interested in exploring the essence of evil and how it manifests, as many classic horror movies have done before, but its Satanic themes can be interpreted as critiquing the traditionalist, religious expectation of the nuclear family structure and belief that girls should be docile and pure. Frequently, the film following the investigation of FBI Agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) into the mysterious, cipher-obsessed serial killer known as Longlegs (Nicholas Cage) features references to girls and “little things” needing to be safe from the “cruel world.” By the end, that all comes to a head and you feel unclean yourself at what you’ve witnessed.
