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Osgood Perkins, the director of serial killer horror, Longlegs, has revealed the meaning behind the movie’s ending in a new interview.
Set in the 1990s, the film follows FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) as she investigates a series of murders attributed to a killer known as Longlegs (Nicolas Cage).
The movie left viewers unable to sleep, after it was dubbed the best serial killer film in recent memory, drawing comparisons to the cult impact of The Silence of the Lambs.
*Spoilers ahead*
The ending of the movie is left open-ended with an unnerving scene in which Harker is left unable to shoot a doll possessed by the devil, while she attempts to save the daughter of her colleague Carter (Blair Underwood) who she shoots dead after he kills his wife.
“That was always the ending. The ending was meant to be tragic,” Perkins told Variety. “The devil wins again on a small scale. One of the fun things about using the devil as your villain is that the devil never really goes for world domination.
“The devil always feels like, ‘I’ll just f*** with this person, I’ll wreck this family, I’ll mess this kid up, I’ll torment this priest.’ It’s never like, ‘I’m going to eat the Vatican.’
“It never gets to that point for me with the devil. The devil is a little more amusing and playful than that. The story of Lee Harker ends with the ending of the movie. The last shot that she fires is the worst thing that can happen to her.”
He went on to share how the ending was inspired by serial killer movie, Se7en.
“We were consciously aware of our references and we wanted to create a pop art piece. As many times we could crib or steal a move from one of the great serial killer movies, we wanted to do it. That’s just Se7en.
“I think Kevin Spacey has three or four scenes, right? He gives himself up, he’s in the thing and then he’s in the car and there’s the end. He’s always present, which we had with Cage too, like there’s a presence of this thing, but once you get to the guy, it’s almost anticlimactic.”
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Neon, who produced the movie, registered their most successful box office opening weekend following the film’s release.
The film, which was budgeted at $3m (£2.3m), is set to make up to $23m (£17.7m) in the US. Neon’s previous films include I, Tonya, Triangle of Sadness and the Oscar-winning Parasite, which is its most successful overall.
