Movies

Nicolas Cage's Longlegs teaser gives us 85 seconds of gnomic dread

"It Follows" actress Maika Monroe costars in the serial killer movie from director Osgood Perkins.

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Published on February 2, 2024 03:15PM EST

Want to know what's going on in the teaser trailer for the Nicolas Cage- and Maika Monroe-starring serial killer film Longlegs? Hey, us too!

The clip features terrifying imagery — A wall of mysterious symbols! A book called Nine Circles of Hell! A woman getting attacked from behind with what looks like an axe! — and an ominous score. What it does not feature is much in the way of plot explanation or, for that matter, Nicolas Cage.

This is in line with the unrevealing posters and short clips which have already been released by distributors Neon over the past few weeks. It is also in line with the previous work of writer-director Osgood Perkins, the man responsible for such terrific but pretty darned gnomic horror movies as 2015's The Blackcoat's Daughter and 2016's I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House.

What we can tell you is that the film costars Monroe from It Follows and The Guest who plays an FBI agent assigned to the case of Cage's elusive serial killer. We can also confirm that the teaser's description on YouTube reads, "You've got the teeth of the hydra upon you," which obviously clears matters up no end.

Perkins is the son of Psycho star Anthony Perkins and, as he explained to EW in 2016, it is no coincidence that this child of a horror icon is himself such a fan of the genre. “It was my father’s business,” he said. “As some children go into banking because their fathers are bankers, and some people become dentists because their fathers are dentists, one of my ways of connecting with my old man — who I couldn’t always connect with — was through the fact that he was an icon in this genre.”

Longlegs will be released this July 12. Watch the teaser trailer below.