Easily one of the most talked-about horror movies of 2024 was Longlegs, a movie which earned that reputation before it was even unleashed on audiences. Its cryptic and compelling marketing campaign avoided offering any glimpses at Nicolas Cage as the titular serial killer, while the overall tone of these trailers embraced the moody and grim spirit of the film’s tone. Longlegs writer/director Osgood Perkins was far from a household name, but fans who were more in touch with the world of indie horror were thrilled to get to see him launched into the spotlight. Less than a year later, Perkins’s follow-up film, The Monkey, showcases an entirely different side of the filmmaker’s storytelling sensibilities.
Videos by ComicBook.com
While Perkins has rightfully earned the newfound attention of horror fans, he has an established history of offering audiences engaging and unconventional horror movies, all of which have their own merits and unique perspectives. In honor of The Monkey landing in theaters, we reflect on Perkins’s career and how each of his films stack up to one another.
5) I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House
His sophomore film, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House had the potential to earn Perkins lots of attention, given that the movie landed on Netflix. However, the nature of the film and its relatively unpublicized release on the streaming platform in 2016 resulted in the experience being largely overlooked.
The movie stars Ruth Wilson as a live-in nurse who begins to suspect her patient’s home is haunted, with the ghost sporadically appearing in the home, as played by Lucy Boynton. The film is deliberately paced and leans into eerie and atmospheric scares as opposed to outright terror, but its subtlety and its intimate setting mean it’s easier for audiences to lose focus on the narrative. The film has its charms and its standout moments, though might be a bit too restrained for most audiences.
4) Gretel & Hansel
Recent years have seen indie filmmakers putting gruesome spins on family-friendly characters like Winnie-the-Pooh and Bambi, but years before then, Perkins aimed to offer a more authentic and frightening adaptation of Hansel and Gretel. While there have been centuries of more whimsical interpretations of the story, Perkins embraced the inherent terror of a witch who kidnaps children to eat them.
Inspired by the Brothers Grimm fairytale, Perkins’s take on the material is far moodier and ominous than any other take on the concept. The movie largely remains faithful to the source material, delivering the story of Gretel (Sophia Lillis) and Hansel (Sam Leakey) as they become lost in the woods and get kidnapped by a witch (Alice Krige). Much like Perkins’s previous film, Gretel & Hansel has gorgeous visuals that he’s able to take to an entirely new level, thrusting audiences into this frightening and fantastical world. The narrative itself doesn’t offer up any real surprises, but getting to see a fairytale adaptation that authentically honors its macabre inspirations still makes the film worth checking out.
3) The Monkey
Based on the Stephen King short story of the same name, The Monkey focuses on twin brothers (both played by Theo James) who inherit a wind-up monkey from their father. In addition to just how creepy the toy looks, every time someone winds up the monkey to play its drum, a bizarre and gruesome death occurs.
[RELATED – The Monkey Review: A Stephen King Adaptation That Goes Bananas]
With Perkins confirming that he himself has a sense of humor in any interviews supporting his films, The Monkey gets to show off his predilection towards jet-black comedy while also delivering audiences a metaphorical meditation on generational trauma. The Monkey makes audiences grin from ear to ear whether we see sardonic and sarcastic conversations between the twins or when we witness the many times humans literally explode into clouds of blood.
2) Longlegs
It’s a testament to Perkins’s skills as a visual storyteller just how freaked out audiences were by the Longlegs marketing campaign, as compilations of creepy sequences from the film effectively built up tremendous buzz about the project.
The movie focuses on Lee Harker (Maika Monroe), an FBI agent tasked with tracking down the titular killer (Nicolas Cage), who somehow manages to avoid capture as no physical evidence can connect him to his crimes. The further Harker gets into her investigation, the closer she gets to Longlegs — literally and figuratively — as she uncovers the unexpected reason she was the perfect person to try to apprehend the killer.
Perkins regularly expressed how his film was meant to serve as a “greatest hits” of horror elements, as the film tonally and narratively borrowed from ’90s classics like The Silence of the Lambs and Seven, though he still remixed those inspirations in clever and terrifying ways. Throw in heaping helpings of the supernatural, cult activity, creepy dolls, and a frightening performance from Cage and you have an effective and accessible descent into terror.
1) The Blackcoat’s Daughter
All of Perkins’s films have been effective in entirely different ways, but it’s still his debut outing into horror that is his most successful.
Set during the winter break at a girls’ boarding school (the film was originally merely titled February), Katherine (Kiernan Shipka) and Rose (Lucy Boynton) strike up a friendship, largely due to the fact that they’re stuck at the school together while so many of their classmates have left. As they develop their relationship, Rose also grows concerned over Katherine’s bizarre behavior, all while audiences see that the mysterious Joan (Emma Roberts) is hitchhiking her way back towards the school for undisclosed reasons.
The Blackcoat’s Daughter is eerie and ominous, with Perkins using his skills of deliberate pacing to slowly develop tension, only offering a handful of creepy clues that hint towards a frightening crescendo and narrative twist. His debut movie demonstrates a confidence over his pacing, narrative, and cinematography, with the experience of watching the movie being as chilling and unnerving as if we were stuck at this boarding school ourselves. Given the strength of his debut directorial effort, it’s no surprise that so many of Perkins’s horror movies have been effective to varying degrees, though he’s yet to surpass the accomplishments of The Blackcoat’s Daughter.
What’s your favorite Perkins movie? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!
