CULT CORNER: Terrifying teaser

“Now this is how to sell a horror movie,” raved pop culture website Polygon in early February.

The trailer for the film “Longlegs,” from NEON Cinema (the company behind 2019’s “Parasite” and last year’s “Ferrari”), created a stir for its lack of detail and highly tense promotional material.

The trailer in question plays out as follows: The camera slowly zooms in on a photo of a family which includes a dad, a mom and a preteen daughter. A voiceover of a 911 call plays. A panicked man, seemingly the father from the photo, tells the dispatcher that his daughter isn’t his daughter. Symbols flash over the girl’s eyes. Another, aged photo is shown; it appears to be the girl, from the waist down, lying on the floor. Her legs are slightly elongated. And finally, we see the film’s title. That’s it.

It sounds absurd on paper, but it works in the same way so much of “The Shining” (1980) does. Something is off, but not in a way that’s completely obvious at first. It’s the kind of horror film that takes its cue not from what we see, but from the dread of what we might see.

“Longlegs” writer and director Osgood Perkins specializes in this kind of horror and, if the hype for the film pays off when it is released in July, he’ll likely establish himself as a notable name in the genre alongside other modern directors like Ari Aster (“Hereditary,” “Midsommar”).

With just three films under his belt in the past nine years, Perkins’ style is meticulous in visuals and pacing. Where “Terrifier 2,” the breakout horror hit of 2023, leaned into bombastic on-screen torture and gore, Perkins’ work is the exact opposite — meticulous in its pacing and visuals and far more about agonizing dread.

He’s put this aesthetic to work in “The Blackcoat’s Daughter” (2015), “I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House” (2016) and “Gretel and Hansel” (2020). Respectively, he’s directed an occult possession tale, a ghost story and a classic folktale, all firmly rooted in the horror tradition of the aforementioned “The Shining,” as well as other horror slow burns like “Don’t Look Now” (1973), “House of the Devil” (2009) and “Hereditary” (2018).

Son of actor Anthony Perkins, who is best known for his iconic portrayal of Norman Bates in “Psycho” (1960), Perkins spent his early years pursuing a career as an actor. According to an interview at the 2015 Toronto Film Fest, he dreamed of writing and directing from a young age and, in his early 40s, recalibrated his efforts. The years he spent on film sets as a would-be director paid off. “The Blackcoat’s Daughter” is stylistically assured, even when the narrative buckles under its own weight. Perkins imbues the entire film with a brutally intense, icy dread few horror or thriller directors achieve in their most tightly constructed moments.

His second film, “I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House,” is simpler in scale, and Perkins nails the ending while maintaining his aesthetic verve. “Gretel and Hansel,” which had the unfortunate distinction of releasing six weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic began, showed what Perkins could do as he stretched his cinematic wings into fairytale territory.

A slightly longer trailer for “Longlegs” was released shortly after the original teaser. It, and the accompanying promotional images, don’t give away much more. According to news releases, the film follows a young FBI agent’s investigation into a serial killer who may have connections to her family — and to the occult. It stars Nicolas Cage as the serial killer suspect and Maika Monroe, who is best known to horror fans as the star of “It Follows” (2014).

Hopefully, NEON doesn’t tell us anything else. It doesn’t need to. Perkins’ work and the trailer are enough to create a terror-filled anticipation that comes along very seldom.

Thompson, VHS.D, holds a doctorate of cult media in pop culture from University of Maine at Castle Rock. He delivers lectures on movies and other pop culture topics under the moniker Professor VHS. Find him on Instagram as @professorvhs and find more of his work at professorvhs.substack.com.