‘Longlegs’: A Masterclass in Horror Movie Marketing
Neon has been on a roll recently.
In 2007, leading up to their post-apocalyptic concept album Year Zero, Nine Inch Nails began a new kind of marketing campaign that was drastically different from anything seen before from a major musical artist. It began in February with a t-shirt being sold at their concert merch booths that had specific letters highlighted on it, which spelled out the words “I Am Trying to Believe”. Fans quickly realized that there was a website with that url, which contained information about a dystopian near-future USA in which a dirty bomb had been detonated in L.A., resulting in the U.S. Government dropping a nuclear weapon in the middle east, and eventually dispersing drugs into America’s water supply to make people more complacent. As fans began to unravel more clues (including USB drives containing new music that had been mysteriously left in bathrooms at concerts), it became clear that it was all part of a massive alternate reality game that fleshed out the world of the new album.
Since then, many people have attempted to create similar campaigns to varying effects. The most noteworthy was probably the promotion for Matt Reeves’ Cloverfield, which also began in 2007, beginning with the famous trailer that dropped before Michael Bay’s Transformers. The minute long teaser showed a glimpse of a New York that was apparently under attack by some kind of kaiju, and yet it revealed almost nothing about the movie — not even its title. It ended with only two pieces of information, a) the film was being produced by Lost and Alias creator J.J. Abrams, and b) it would be released in theaters on January 18th, 2008. Fans went home and looked up the date, to find that it also led to a mysterious website that would gradually trickle out small hints about the found-footage disaster film.
Almost no recent project has managed to capture the same kind of mysterious hype as these genius marketing campaigns did. That is, until Oz Perkins’ new film Longlegs. Perkins, the son of actor Anthony Perkins (best known for his role of Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho), has directed several other horror-thrillers in recent years, most of which have had limited releases and done moderately well amongst critics. But Longlegs is a different beast entirely, a truly earth-shattering, profoundly upsetting horror-mystery that features Maika Monroe as a young FBI agent on the trail of a mysterious serial killer known as Longlegs, played by Nicolas Cage. At time of writing this, the film is my favorite movie of 2024 so far, and is without a doubt one of the best marketing campaigns I have seen in ages.
I’m not here to tell you anything about Longlegs’ plot. I’m not going to include any photos of what Nic Cage’s demented killer looks like. If you are a fan of horror films and/or noir-ish detective stories, I would recommend going to see this film ASAP, and going in as blind as possible. One of the best compliments I could give Perkins and company about this movie is that there are familiar genre tropes and storytelling elements in the first half of the movie, certain imagery and dialogue that telegraph twists and plot elements from later on in the film — and yet the way it all comes together is still so devastating that even if you think you had figured out what is going on, you will still be unprepared for the weight with which it hits. The acting, cinematography, music, editing — everything is just *chef’s kiss* next level horror filmmaking. The film may be divisive to some who are more interested in gore and jump scares than a compelling mystery, but I don’t think it’s too early to declare this an instant classic. And its mysterious marketing campaign is one that should be studied by film studios for years to come.
The restraint on display in the trailers is one of the most intriguing parts of the marketing. Even now, re-watching the trailers after having seen the film, I can recognize certain images that could potentially be considered spoilers, but they are either cut so quickly, or lacking in context to the point where they are inexplicable if you don’t know what is going on under the surface of the story. One of the biggest talking points leading up to the film’s release is the fact that Nicolas Cage’s titular Longlegs is notably absent from the trailers with the exception of brief glimpses and snippets of his voice. One of my favorite parts of the main trailer for the movie is the way that Cage’s voice is actually incorporated into the music, and it’s a clip from a key moment in the film. This serves to not only create a mysterious and unsettling atmosphere for anyone who is watching the trailer for the first time, but also makes anyone (myself included) who revisits the trailer want to immediately go see the film again to further dissect the layers that exist within its dense narrative.
A similar tactic was used in the trailer for A24’s The VVitch, the debut film from Robert Eggers. If you have seen the Anya Taylor-Joy-starring supernatural flick, I highly recommend revisiting the trailer, and paying close attention to the music in it. There is a particular rhythmic sound that starts at around the 0:44 mark in that clip, and while it may not sound like anything special, if you have seen the film, you will know exactly what that sound is, and immediately understand what an insane (and brilliant) move it was to turn it into part of the trailer’s score.
Longlegs was produced by a number of independent studios, notably Black Bear, who also released the Sydney Sweeney-starring Immaculate earlier this year, and are slated to release Perkins’ next film The Monkey sometime in 2025. In February of 2023, film distributor Neon Rated purchased the rights for North American distribution of Longlegs, which added to their already impressive slate of other recent horror, thriller and drama films, including Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool and Oscar fare like Michael Mann’s Ferrari and Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite. While A24 has widely been considered to be the biggest name in the recent renaissance of “arthouse horror”, Neon has absolutely been giving them a run for their money recently, with Longlegs perhaps being their most high-profile release in the genre to date.
In addition to the obtuse and terrifying trailers, Neon has also played a heavy hand in other excellent marketing for the film, including some seriously wicked posters and billboards. Many of them are simply stills from the film that show particularly upsetting images completely out of context, with the film’s title and Monroe and Cage’s names in red text. But perhaps most impressive is the Los Angeles billboard pictured at the top of this article, which shows a small glimpse of Cage in his makeup and features a phone number (conveniently containing the number of the beast) that you can call. And no other information, not even the studio or film title. Once dialed, it features a clip of audio from the film of Longlegs singing happy birthday, something which has immense significance in the context of the narrative, but which I will not spoil here. Many people only pieced together that this was a billboard for this particular movie when it was posted on the official Instagram page.
These tactics, which harken back to the 2007 releases mentioned above, have clearly paid off in spades. The film is already doing better than expected at the domestic box office, earning Neon their biggest opening weekend ever. And it extends outside of America too, where Neon is not even distributing it or running advertising. The hype has just been building so much amongst genre fans that this film is not only genuinely scary, but so mysterious and unknown that it just has to be seen in theaters before it can be spoiled for any potential viewers. I saw the movie on opening day in Scotland at a sold out matinee screening, in which as far as I could tell, not a single person got up to even use the restroom once. There was a palpable feeling of nervous anticipation when the lights went down, and it felt as if anyone in the theater missed a single piece of the story, it would be breaking the collective illusion we had all bought into. At the end of the movie, one person in the back just said “Oh my God”, which led to a release of cathartic laughter amongst the crowd. In the lobby, everyone was positively buzzing, discussing their theories on the way things had played out, and their opinions of the performances. And then I saw it again on Sunday. Yeah, it’s that good.
I think it’s safe to say that if the film had been distributed by a different studio, Cage’s distinctive look would have been on full display in the marketing. It may have even been the first still released from the movie to drum up hype for the independent picture. Instead, Neon has been releasing various promotional clips for the movie with vague titles, most of which only make sense when you’ve seen the complete film. Even though many of them use the same clips over and over, the editing and sound design make each one feel fresh, and leaving you wanting more.
Osgood Perkins is a man who is inextricably tied to horror, in both cinema and real life. His father helped define the serial killer slasher genre, and his mother was killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York. By all accounts, he is a very nice man in person, yet the world he has crafted in Longlegs is so evil that actors Blair Underwood and Alicia Witt said they had to make sure to pray every day of filming in order to be able to do their work properly. This film feels as if it is a cathartic release of sorts for Perkins, and it is so refreshing to see it being treated with the love and care that it deserves. In a world where studios often seem hellbent on running themselves into the ground, Neon Rated LLC. have proven themselves to be the new place to turn to for filmmakers who truly trust their audiences to follow them down their own deep, dark rabbit holes.
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