The Evil in ‘Longlegs’ and the Serial Killer Movie Canon

'Longlegs'Osgood Perkins's serial-killer movie, with Rob Mahoney

Longlegs 2024

Perkins's fourth feature: Maika Monroe as a 1990s FBI agent working a Clarice Starling-style case, Nicolas Cage as the titular killer, with Alicia Witt as Lee's mother and Blair Underwood. Sean and Rob call it a serial-killer thriller that subverts itself, a dread machine that wrong-foots its own puzzle-solving and turns out to be about parenthood, about what a mother will hide. Cage plays him as a pathetic glam-rock creep rather than a Hannibal Lecter; the killer is almost incidental to the movie named after him. A week later Sean woke in the night seeing Cage's face.

The serial killer movie canon10 films, roughly by era, not ranked

M 1931

Fritz Lang's, Peter Lorre as a child murderer hunted through Germany. One of the films the whole genre is built on.

Psycho 1960

Hitchcock's, starring Perkins's father Anthony Perkins. Famous for a flimsy psychiatrist-explains-it-all ending the movie outlives on craft alone, and still referenced everywhere seven decades on.

Klute 1971

Alan Pakula's, a killer stalking a prostitute and the man trying to protect her, with Donald Sutherland (RIP) and a deeply uncomfortable turn from Charles Cioffi. Sean's under-seen pick: more influential than popular, a clear line to Demme and Fincher.

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer 1986

John McNaughton's, Michael Rooker as a man compelled to kill. Little seen, hugely influential, and gets under your skin more than Longlegs does. The version where you spend the whole time with the killer.

The Silence of the Lambs 1991

The best pure serial-killer movie ever made, per Sean. A lock.

Se7en 1995

Fincher's, and probably the most influential of all of these on what the modern version of the genre looks like. A lock.

Funny Games 1997

Haneke's original Austrian version, two polite punks in gloves torturing a family and then starting over with the next one. The home-invasion, elbow-in-the-ribs entry.

American Psycho 2000

Mary Harron's, the gonzo-satire slot alongside Funny Games and Natural Born Killers. Smashes desire and violence together and tells you you're gross for watching.

Memories of Murder 2003

Bong Joon-ho's investigation drama, hugely influential on Zodiac. The pass-the-baton partner to Fincher, and about what solving these crimes does to the people who try.

Zodiac 2007

Fincher again, less about the kills than the toll of the case. Sean rates the picnic murder among the scariest things he's seen; the second Fincher the canon couldn't avoid.

Oz Perkins on 'Longlegs'the director, in conversation

Osgood Perkins on

Longlegs 2024

Perkins on approaching it like a crossword, aping Silence of the Lambs as an 'admit-one ticket' before turning left; Cage reading the script and insisting on doing every word as written, then meeting him on the T. Rex idea. The design was easy, he says, the killer built as a gross nobody the devil found through the amp, not an omniscient force. Underneath: a movie about a parent hiding a huge thing from a child, unlocked years earlier watching 'Eraserhead' as a new father.

Osgood Perkins on

The Blackcoat's Daughter 2017

His debut, which he hated until the sound mix saved it. About losing your parents.

Osgood Perkins on

I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House 2016

About wanting to know someone who's gone, and how hard that is once they are.

Osgood Perkins on

Gretel & Hansel 2020

The one he didn't write and feels he missed, a chance to make a movie about a mother who deceives a child out of love.

Osgood Perkins on

The Monkey 2025

His Stephen King movie with the Longlegs crew, bought by Neon out of a Cannes bidding war. Three features in fifteen months.

Also mentioned raised along the way

The canon debate — considered, then cut The Night of the HunterPeeping TomBlack ChristmasHalloweenDirty HarryManhunterRed DragonNatural Born KillersBasic InstinctCureAuditionAngstCruisingTightropeSea of LoveKaliforniaMonsterThe Girl with the Dragon TattooFreewayFreeway II: Confessions of a TrickbabyThe CellSerial MomJennifer 8CopycatKiss the GirlsBlinkDeep RedSawThe Black PhoneThe House That Jack BuiltStranger by the LakeFriday the 13thThe Driller KillerButcher, Baker, Nightmare MakerVirtuosityMaXXXineChimeMade in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger

In the Perkins conversation EraserheadSorcererStar WarsMy Own Private IdahoThe PurgePlay It as It LaysFly Me to the MoonNopeGet OutUsGone in 60 Seconds

Elsewhere in the show Dream ScenarioPigNational TreasureDespicable Me 4BarbarianThe Man in the Moon

Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads

TV House of the DragonGame of ThronesMindhunterHannibalMonster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story

Books A Song of Ice and Fire

Podcasts Trial by ContentA Storm of SpoilersGroup ChatPrestige TV

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