Too often, film trailers tend to give the whole game away. But clearly Osgood Perkins — son of Psycho star Anthony Perkins and director of underrated chiller Gretel & Hansel — didn't get the memo. His latest, Nicolas Cage and Maika Monroe-starring occult serial killer chiller Longlegs, has enjoyed an unnerving slew of cryptic teasers and promo posters — and the latest is no different. Check out the new trailer for the film below;
"Is it scary being a lady FBI agent?" an inquisitive kid asks Maika Monroe's (It Follows) Lee Harker. "Yeah," Lee replies. And honestly, on present evidence, that's fair. With its The Silence Of The Lambs-esque combo of crime-thriller procedural and out-and-out horror flourishes, this first full trailer for Perkins' latest has us all kinds of creeped out. From Nicolas Cage's whisper-voiced, straggly-haired weirdo killer ("I know you're not afraid of a little bit of dark... because you are the dark," he croaks menacingly here), to the satanic symbology and fly-infested crime scenes glimpsed, to the jaundiced Zodiac-esque palette of the whole thing, the vibes are decidedly shit-your-pants-scary. That these teasers are giving nothing away when it comes to the dark secrets Monroe's Lee hides, or the true nature and motivation of Cage's killer, is only adding to the collective hype for — and fear of — the film.
Whilst the trailers may refuse to give the game away, the movie's synopsis does offer a few hints about what on Earth is going on here: "FBI Agent Lee Harker (Monroe) is a gifted new recruit assigned to the unsolved case of an elusive serial killer (Cage). As the case takes complex turns, unearthing evidence of the occult, Harker discovers a personal connection to the merciless killer and must race against time to stop him before he claims the lives of another innocent family." In the meantime, we're just going to pour a salt circle around our laptops just in case we've unwittingly unleashed some kind of evil upon ourselves by watching the trailer.
Longlegs hits cinemas in the US on 12 July. We'll share a UK release date as soon as we've got one.