Did Alfred Hitchcock inspire Nicolas Cage’s ‘Longlegs’?
After debuting in cinemas earlier this month, Longlegs has taken the genre of independent horror by storm. Featuring Nicolas Cage as audiences have never seen him before – so much so that he is almost unrecognisable – the Oz Perkins-directed film is incredibly daring in its content. Although much of the film has a retro feeling to it, thanks in part to the excellent soundtrack, it is distinctly modern in its production. However, the film was reportedly influenced by some vintage horror films.
Horror, as a genre, has a history stretching back almost as far as cinema itself. Some of the earliest commercial films, like the 1908 film Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde or 1910’s Frankenstein, were firmly within the horror genre. It seems as though, for as long as there have been audiences, there have been those chasing the adrenaline rush of a genuinely excellent horror film. As the industry developed, multiple subgenres came to light, including psychological horrors, slashers, and monster films, to name only a few.
Longlegs bears the influences of many different styles of horror, darting from the world of the supernatural to a psychological thriller in the blink of an eye. Director Oz Perkins is clearly a horror junkie; that much is evident from his previous work, including Gretel & Hansel and The Blackcoat’s Daughter. Reportedly, though, Longlegs was particularly inspired by the pioneering work of one director: Alfred Hitchcock.
The contributions of Hitchcock to cinema and filmmaking cannot be overstated. Having made multiple iconic works, including The Birds, Vertigo, and Rear Window, the techniques of Hitchcock paved the way for countless future directors. His 1960 work Psycho was particularly influential on the world of horror, as an early example of the slasher genre, but it is Vertigo that formed some of the inspiration for Longlegs.
Speaking to Polygon in 2020, during the early stages of Longlegs, Perkins shared, “As nicely as horror movies have come out of the reputation gutter and become more well-thought-of by the general public, I think the thriller should be next up.”
The director explained: “The Hitchcockian thriller had a moment in the ’90s, a brief resurgence, but it’s spent most of the past two decades in shittier stature. Where’s our Vertigo? That’s what I’m working on next. I’ve started writing now, and Vertigo is the big one, with trace amounts of Frankenstein and The Social Network in there too.”
Upon watching Longlegs, it is certainly difficult to draw parallels between the nightmare-fuel of Nicolas Cage as “the man downstairs” and Jesse Eisenberg’s portrayal of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network, but Perkins’ film certainly does pay homage to the archetypal thriller, Vertigo. However, that is certainly not where Perkins’ connections to Hitchcock end.
The more perceptive of you might have taken note of Perkins’ surname; he is the son of legendary actor Anthony Perkins, who played the role of Norman Bates in Hitchcock’s Psycho. Bates is an essential character in the development of horror on film, inspiring various future slasher villains ranging from Michael Myers in Halloween to Scream’s Billy Loomis. Hence, Longlegs appears to be built on a rich history of horror.
