Entrail Reading: Longlegs is About Rock ‘N Roll
Reading the guts of horror movies to understand the shadow of American culture, psychology, and society
Warning: spoilers ahead
Longlegs, the summer’s hot new horror movie and Nic Cage freak-fest, at its bloody visceral core, is about mankind’s greatest tradition of rebellion and social anarchy–Rock ’N Roll.
In a movie where Nicolas Cage prances to a shotgun-blast-soundtrack like a twisted combination of the Marquis de Sade and Charles Manson, the references to Rock ‘N Roll culture might feel subtle, even though the movie opens with a quote from T. Rex’s Bang a Gong:
Well you’re slim and weak
You’ve got the teeth of the hydra upon you
You’re dirty sweet and you’re my girl.
That T. Rex heavily influenced director Oz Perkins’ creative choices is no secret. Perkins explains in interviews with both Rolling Stone and IndieWire that there is something of glam rocker Marc Bolan’s soul in Longlegs, and everything from the titular villain’s backstory to his character design, and even the sound design of the movie, references the charmingly satanic vibe of Alice Cooper style makeup and subliminal backwards messages.
But Rock ‘N Roll is not the monster living in the deepest parts of society’s unconscious. Rock ‘N Roll is a symbol. It is the quintessential American scape-goat for red-state bible-belt fears about the wicked influence of the alternative “other.” It’s no coincidence that Longlegs’ victims are American families. This is the ever clichéd outcry of conservative America–the attack against family values, which reached its peak during the Satanic Panic of the 1980s.
Longlegs harkens back to Ricky Kasso and the Say You Love Satan murder of 1984 as well as the now debunked Satanic Ritual Abuse in Michelle Remembers, but the moral panic of the 80s is only a piece of the terror. In 1999, shock rocker Marilyn Manson was blamed for the Columbine massacre. Even Dungeons and Dragons wasn’t safe from the divine witch hunt of Christian America.
Most versions of the fear of the “other” come from outside the community–the Arab terrorist, your daughter’s black boyfriend, the Mexican immigrant, but the fear that Longlegs so brilliantly plays on is that this other will corrupt from within, turning our families into something unrecognizable and horrific. Sexualized, feminized, often homoerotic avatars of the countercultural are creeping into your child’s bed at night. If they can’t seduce, then they will ply with drugs and impel towards violence.
The marionettist of this corruption is freakish of course–Ozzy with a bat’s head in his mouth, Marc Bolan dead-eyed in a top hat, Nic Cage in white makeup puffing kisses and hailing Satan, but it enters your home in the guise of something innocent–art, music, DnD, a board game (hilarious that they sold Ouija boards at Toys ‘R Us), or perhaps a handmade doll…
And what could possibly be at the heart of this insidious infestation if not Satan himself?
In a material sense, it is at least a semi-reasonable fear that sex and drugs will poison children. Just take a look at this Beatles performance:
Mark the girl in the glasses at around 2:02 and the boy dancing at 2:14. Tell me those kids aren’t experiencing, at the very least, a metaphorical demonic possession.
The great fun of Longlegs, in fact, dare I say, the joy of Longlegs, is imagining that it is a very real Satan who is to blame for the family corruption. The final moment of the movie, when FBI agent Lee Harker points a loaded gun at that creepy-ass doll, pulling the trigger to nothing but a muted click, is the ultimate realization that you are now facing, one-on-one, the king of hell himself. It is frightening, sure, but there is also a mischievous glee, a glee echoed by Cage’s final “hail satan” giggle, closing the movie and cutting to that dirty sweet riff in Bang a Gong.
And of course it's gleeful. It is a great relief to imagine that evil comes from a demonic entity. It is much more confusing when little Timmy starts wearing eyeliner and dropping acid if there isn’t a devil to blame.
Conservative America owes a big old thank you to the hipthrusters, boy lovers, and dope smokers of Rock ‘N Roll. If it wasn’t for them, they’d only have themselves to blame when their sons come roaring out of the closet or their daughters take a liking to fishnets. And then they might have to consider what’s in them, what they handed down to their children, what urges to dress in delicious black drag have they been keeping at bay, what little bit of Satan worship, what little bit of Rock ‘N Roll?
Ironic that they provoke a demonic ecstasy while singing about the joys of coming home after a long day or work. 😂 They definitely knew how to have it both ways. Demon kings of domestic paradox.