Someone needs to pick me up because I’m terrified and looking forward to NEON’s new crime horror thriller long legs. Starring Maika Monroe (it follows) and Nicolas Cage as the titular villain, it was written and directed by Oz Perkins (son of Oz Perkins). mentally illStarring Anthony Perkins, the film quietly entered the film industry and became one of the most hyped movies of the year with its unique interactivity and mysterious marketing methods. But it’s not about mysterious adverts, untitled trailers and Blair WitchA style website that appeals to moviegoers.
It’s that damn trailer.
In just over a minute, the trailer deftly demonstrates the power of horror storytelling: suspense, atmosphere, and the human attraction to scary things that don’t actually put us in any mortal danger . If you’re a horror screenwriter, these are your deadliest weapons.
So, let’s review these horror mechanics and delve into why weirdos like us can’t wait to finally see the face of this mysterious serial killer.
But first, if you haven’t seen the damn thing yet:
Why are we attracted to scary things?
What draws people to zombies, possessed nuns and brutal serial killers? Many great thinkers, from Aristotle to Sigmund Freud, have tried to explain this strange human tendency, but they have not focused on Whylet us focus on What—What Let us be attracted to horror? In a 2004 paper published in the Journal of Media Psychology, psychologist Glenn D. Walters listed three factors that contribute to this attraction:
- nervous: This is created by adding horror elements such as suspense, mystery, gore, shock and horror.
- Related: This aligns with what moviegoers can identify with, including universal fears like death and the unknown, cultural fears like government overreach and civil unrest, and personal fears stemming from the viewer’s lived experience.
- Realism: Moviegoers must know that what they are watching is not real. This is why people who enjoy watching murder scenes in movies will not enjoy watching films where actual murders take place.
We want horror movies with flesh and blood, squirming shadows, and sudden jump scares. We want to see horror movies that play on the fears we’re familiar with. Yeah…we need it to have a certain level of unreality because the real horror is actually Horrible—like screaming out of a theater.
Read more: Scream Scripts: The Best Horror Movie Scripts You Can Read (If You Dare)
“Long Legs” (2024)
of terror long legs from…us
Maybe it’s one of the reasons why so many people are crazy long legs That’s because the film has all three of Waters’ suggestions for adding to our attraction to horror entertainment, and in just the right amount. Let’s look at the first two.
this long legs The trailer is intense.
If there’s one goal in marketing this movie, it’s to create tension. There are billboards with mysterious phone numbers, teaser videos with strange titles, and a very ’90s-looking Birthday Murders website. All these fragments lay like bread crumbs along a winding path, and our curiosity could not be satisfied until we followed it all the way to our theater seats.
But I think the most tension-filled element is NEON’s refusal to show us Nic Cage’s strange face. This Creepy Doll’s Breathing, Satanic Killer is the most important horror genre of all types that we are not allowed to see. All we get is his unusually soft voice speaking mysterious words, his limp hands dangling in front of his pale face, and a host of horrific images: ciphers, bloody hands, people’s The back was slashed.
I don’t know why we as humans want to look villains and monsters in the eye, but we do, and undercutting our desire to do so in movies with shadows, sounds, and blurry faces really reinforces the idea that most Look forward to the release of Glorious Horror when we do.
This is an important lesson for all horror screenwriters. You might be great at creating a truly terrifying villain or monster, but you know who’s better? your audience. The power of suggestion is real and very powerful, so if you give your audience a brief, vague glimpse of the horror they’re about to witness, the tension that initially drew them to your story will last longer, and lead them to a more satisfying ending.
Read more: What makes a slasher horror movie character? Common horror character archetypes
“Long Legs” (2024)
this long legs Trailer related
Relevance plays a huge role in people’s attraction to horror entertainment, for fairly simple and obvious reasons. They are the same reason we consume any type of entertainment – we identify with it. Perkins crafts a story that’s clearly relatable to a large audience of moviegoers, and it’s a lesson in choosing the right subject for your own story.
common fear
Death is undoubtedly a common fear among all humans, as is the fear of the unknown and the deterioration of family relationships. you can see long legs Delve into the mysterious background behind the brutal murder of young girls, family members killing each other, and all of this.
Not only that, it’s a horror in itself and thriller. This is my beloved son Selenium 7en and zodiac signs and this silence of the lambsAll films successfully blend two closely related genres in a way that leaves you filled with tension without being anxious and, once the tension is lifted, you’re utterly terrified of what you’re experiencing.
social fear
long legs Addresses themes core to our current cultural zeitgeist, including religious fanaticism and violence against women and girls.
The occult codes and killings with religious underpinnings draw on current world events that are facing backlash, such as U.S. legislation requiring the Bible to be taught in schools in some states, which many see as government overreach and the downfall of the U.S. government.
Additionally, toxic masculinity and misogyny have been topics of conversation for years, leading to the #MeToo movement, and the opposite side of the alpha male phenomenon. So when a movie about a female FBI agent chasing a male serial killer who targets young girls came out, it was better than Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) caught in “Buffalo.” Buffalo Bill (played by Ted Levine) is even more relevant.
personal fears
This is Perkins’ most autobiographical film to date. He told Indiewire:
“Everything I try to do, I do it for myself so that it creates a truth and honesty for me, and I know that if I talk about myself, I’m never going to be full of shit. Even though it may be coded , there are a lot of layers of other stuff, but at the end of the day, all the films I make are essentially based on my experiences, which tend to be my experiences with my parents.
Even Nic Cage has his own story, telling Entertainment Weekly the inspiration for his terrifying face:
“My mom put Noxzema cold cream on. When I was two years old, I opened the bathroom door [to see] What is she doing. For no reason, she turned around very quickly and stared at me. [putting on] Cold cream. The white color of the cold cream really scares me.
Let’s get personal – or so I will. I will get personal. The film is set in the Pacific Northwest in the 1990s. That’s very important to me because that’s where and when I grew up. The thought of someone like Longlegs doing these unspeakable things at the same time and in the same place as a young, vulnerable little girl really… makes me want to experience these horrors in the safety and comfort of an adult in a movie theater .
“Long Legs” (2024)
—
Writing a horror movie is hard. You have to put a lot of moving parts in the right place to elicit a very specific response from your audience. Basically, you have to scare them. If you don’t scare them, is your horror script really a horror script?
However, the incredible reaction long legs Showing us that great horror fiction is still alive and well – killing and dismembering its characters to terrify those who enjoy watching this sort of thing.
But I think success means being on top of what’s going on in the world, your country, and within yourself at all times. Find the fear festering beneath those polite smiles you see on TV, at the dinner table, and in the mirror, because the heartbeat of fear is ourselves.
Read more: 200 Types of Villains, Antagonists and Bad Guys
