Summary

Longlegs
had a successful opening weekend, landing in the number two spot with $22.6 million, the biggest for an original horror movie this year.
Some genre fans are celebrating the success of
Longlegs
, claiming it proves audiences want more original horror films. They might be missing the point.
The film’s distributor, NEON, executed a standout marketing campaign, generating intrigue and excitement among genre fans leading up to the release.

Following a wildly intriguing marketing campaign, Longlegs finally crept into theaters over the weekend and became a major hit. It wasn’t big enough to beat the Minions, but the latest film from Osgood Perkins landed in the number two spot, out-grossing Inside Out 2 in its third week (a movie that actually has long legs, in terms of box office). The reason for Longlegs’ success is apparent, but some genre fans are singing a familiar — and inaccurate — tune on social media.

Despicable Me 4 was the highest-grossing film at the box office this weekend ($44.6 million), but Longlegs came in a very respectable second place with $22.6 million, making it the biggest opening weekend for an original horror movie this year. The new film from Osgood Perkins (The Blackcoat’s Daughter, Gretel & Hansel) stars Maika Monroe as a preternaturally gifted FBI agent assigned to investigate a series of murders that have stumped agents for three decades. Nicolas Cage co-stars as a sinister figure — a pale eccentric reminiscent of Tiny Tim — whose involvement in the murders is similarly perplexing.

Why Genre Fans Are Celebrating the Success of Longlegs
Longlegs 4.5/5 Longlegs is a horror thriller film by writer-director Osgood Perkins. When FBI agent Lee Harker is assigned to a serial killer cold case, their investigation leads them down a rabbit hole riddled with disturbing discoveries and the occult at the center of it all. When the trail of evidence reveals a personal connection, it becomes a race against time to prevent another murder.Release Date July 12, 2024 Runtime 1hr 41min Studio Automatik Entertainment, C2 Motion Picture Group, Neon Expand

In addition to the predictably inane debate over whether Longlegs is as scary as its marketing, some genre fans are pushing a familiar narrative: The success of Longlegs proves that audiences want more original horror movies.

And sure, that’s one thing you might take away from the box office, but it’s a little obvious and redundant. We hear the same thing every year when an original horror movie becomes a hit. Just replace Longlegs with Talk to Me (2023), Barbarian (2022), Malignant (2021), and so on. Rom-coms have their own version of this, where some new movie inevitably “proves” that the rom-com “is back.” There was Anyone But You, Bros, The Lost City, Fire Island, I Want You Back, Isn’t It Romantic? — just a handful of successful rom-coms from the past few years, but you get the idea.

4:23 Related Longlegs Star Maika Monroe & Director Discuss the Year’s Scariest Movie Osgood Perkins and Maika Monroe spoke with MovieWeb about their terrifying Nicolas Cage film and Perkins’ Stephen King adaptation, The Monkey.

Like rom-coms, original horror movies never left. Some just hit harder than others. But every year, when an original horror movie does numbers at the box office, you’ll inevitably see well-intentioned fans of the genre crowing about the value of original horror. “See? Audiences want original horror movies. This proves it!” Yes, and audiences also want horror movies based on existing IP, as my friend and longtime horror critic Brian Collins pointed out on X.

Abigail and Lisa Frankenstein are arguably based on existing IP (Dracula and Frankenstein, respectively), but the point stands: these and several other recent horror films were out-grossed by The Strangers: Chapter 1, the first in a new trilogy based on 2008’s The Strangers. (Chapters 2 and 3 are already complete.) It doesn’t necessarily matter if The Strangers: Chapter 1 was any good; audiences recognized the title and the iconography and bought tickets.

For every Longlegs or Hereditary, there are a few original horror movies each year that are just as good (if not better) and not nearly as successful. A24’s I Saw the TVGlow, the Lynchian coming-of-age horror film from Jane Schoenbrun, grossed just under $5 million during its run. And it’s impossible to know how these movies will be considered a decade or two from now, an intangible metric of success.

12:29 Related Justice Smith & Jane Schoenbrun on the ‘Mind-F**kery’ of I Saw the TV Glow The film’s star and the director discuss their love of scary movies, embracing fan theories, and remaking They Live.

Longlegs Ran One Hell of a Marketing Campaign

As with most things, attributing a given outcome to a single contributing factor is an oversimplification. There are a few reasons why Longlegs is a hit, not the least of which is the incredible marketing campaign executed by the film’s distributor, NEON. (If NEON had put half as much effort into promoting Origin last year, Ava DuVernay’s latest might’ve done much better.)

It started on Jan. 5, when NEON released a mysterious teaser for an unnamed horror film:

The teaser, which features audio from a disturbing 911 call over a photo of a family from the ’80s or ’90s, took off on social media, where genre fans had fun sussing out which of NEON’s upcoming horror movies the video could be promoting. NEON followed the first teaser up with a series of similarly cryptic promos, eventually confirming that the effectively creepy marketing was all in service of Longlegs — all the while withholding key details, including the plot and Nicolas Cage’s deranged role.

Even as the marketing became a little less opaque in the weeks leading up to its release, NEON wisely avoided sharing too much about Longlegs, a decision bolstered by a lack of advance screenings, which kept word-of-mouth to a satisfying minimum.

Is the movie good? I think it rips, and your mileage may vary, but the lesson here isn’t that audiences want more original horror movies. They do. They also want more recognizable IP. Multiple things can be true at once. If there’s one lesson we can learn from the success of Longlegs, it’s that genre movies need better marketing. It’s incredibly satisfying (and fun!) to spend months getting excited about a new movie, especially when you know so little about it, and to finally be seated for that movie with popcorn in hand. It’s thrilling. And it’s even better when that excitement is rewarded with a damn good time.

You’ll have a chance to repeat this experience in August, when Strange Darling hits theaters. In the meantime, do yourself a solid and avoid the trailers.

Longlegs
is now playing in theaters nationwide.