25 Greatest Film Deaths This Century

6. Longlegs - Longlegs (2024)

Longlegs is the definitive twisted freak of modern indie horror, and not just because he’s played by Nicolas Cage. Haunting just about every frame of Osgood Perkins’ Longlegs in one way or another, despite having very little overall screentime, Longlegs (the character) is a freaky white uggo whose presence overshadows protagonist Lee Harker’s (Maika Monroe) life and FBI career. He is implicated in a series of gruesome murder-suicides that all seem to have been committed by the recently deceased, and yet which all bear his mark and calling cards.

So, how does the monster man make families tear themselves apart, and why does it seem to be something to do with Lee’s past? We are supposed to find out when the Bureau finally tracks Longlegs down and apprehends him. But after implicating Lee’s mother in his crimes, Longlegs takes his face to the table and caves in his own skull with head bash after bloody head bash.

This well and truly takes the wind out of the film’s narrative thrust. Usually, the deal is that if you catch the villain, you’ve won the day. Not so, says Perkins, because Longlegs is a conduit, an agent of darker forces, whose survival and human body are merely incidental, and whose destruction does nothing to impact the masterplan of "the man downstairs".

Chilling doesn’t quite cover it.