There are many theories out there about Oz Perkins’s Longlegs. One of them is that Oz Perkins really can’t be bothered to give his movies a proper name. I mean, just look at his previous movies. “The Blackcoat’s Daughter”? What does that mean?
However I think there can be a good case made that “Longlegs” is actually the perfect name for this movie, for several reasons.
One of them is that it’s difficult to take Longlegs seriously. There’s a distinct lack of anything that’s really threatening there. This guy’s a loser, always was, always will be. He’s just this puffy-looking guy who seems to be about a year away from dying himself.
Now part of the threat he represents is the “normal” level of threat that people like me — straight white cis guys — don’t usually experience. It’s coming under the attention of some weirdo. And that’s something that has to be recognized.
But I think there’s a more pernicious dynamic at play here.
There’s an obvious source for killer’s monicker. It’s “daddy longlegs”, an insect (not a spider! this will be relevant later!) which tends to live in unseen parts of your habitat. I mean, these things are harmless. Contrary to all the silly urban legends you may have heard they effectively have no venom and cannot hurt any reasonably mobile human being.
And that’s the assumption that is essential to Longlegs’s success. He looks, acts and talks like a dingbat.
But the scary thing is, it apparently didn’t take much more than that to keep the FBI fooled back in the mid-90s. I mean, there are plot holes here that could encompass the entire LA area. There are obvious pitfalls for crime fighters back then who were still essentially working by phones (only recently made mobile!). There’s no internet. There’s no huge pool of data from which one could have made inferences. Although part of that is due to mind control — Lee Harker is clearly held back until her doll is destroyed — there are also a number of unforgiveable, almost comedic blunders. I mean, the murders are all connected to one particular birthday, and it didn’t occur to anyone to check what Harker’s DOB was? Or, for that matter, what her boss’s daughter’s DOB? REALLY?!?
But that’s exactly the situation in which the viewer is put, in part by the very name. Daddy longlegs aren’t a threat. They’re not even proper spiders. They have 8 legs but that’s about it. Frankly a single house centipede would easily win a battle of fright with anyone.
But therein lies the rub. Those little critters are just allowed to thrive, and they do, in attics and crawlspaces, frankly you probably don’t even know if you have them most of the time.
But that’s how evil propagates. It doesn’t do big political rallies. It is a way of life for so many people, just by being the “normal thing”. It just quietly drives wedges between people. Even between investigators. At the FBI. Who clearly should have been taken off the case were it not for some hidden force that has kept them there.
And that’s what the real message of “Longlegs” to me. All of this was incredibly easy to decipher, once you have the power of that force no longer bearing down on your judgement.
There’s a lesson in there somewhere.