Longlegs is More The Exorcist III Than Silence of the Lambs

A lot of the pre-release chatter framed Osgood Perkins’ Longlegs as a spiritual successor to Jonathan Demme’s Academy award-winning The Silence of the Lambs. While that is understandable, it owes much more to William Peter Blatty’s own 90s satanic serial killer thriller.

You can see why it was smart to attach Longlegs to the Lambs hook. It’s a 90s-set movie about a young and gifted FBI agent hunting an elusive serial killer. It’s the touchstone that is more likely to get bums in seats. Under the surface, or permeating the atmosphere, of Longlegs is another film’s influence, directly or indirectly.

William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist III is dripping in dread atmosphere. In 1990, Blatty adapted his own novel, Legion, a continuation of his most famous novel, The Exorcist. Blatty was an author by trade, but this marked the second (and last) time he got behind the camera for a film adaptation of his work (after 1980’s The Ninth Configuration).

Set fifteen years after the events of The Exorcist, a seemingly unconnected story emerges. The haggard yet philosophical Lieutenant Kinderman (George C. Scott) is investigating a series of murders. The murders appear ritualistic in nature, and worryingly, they match those of a supposedly deceased serial killer known as The Gemini. Right down to details only known by a small handful of people, including Kinderman.

It begins to venture into The Exorcist territory when Kinderman is led to a psychiatric hospital where a long-confined patient claims to be The Gemini. Not only that, the patient looks an awful lot like someone else who should be dead.

The revelations of Longlegs’ plot cover similar ground to The Exorcist III as it’s revealed the supposed source of brutal ritualistic slayings isn’t as obvious or singular as it seems. But that’s not the only reason they connect.

Both Osgood Perkins and William Peter Blatty have an innate knack for milking apocalyptic dread out of a scene. They know how to keep you uneasy when nothing bad is actually happening. I watched the films a week apart and was struck by how compatible they felt in moo. Not to mention in their refusal to stick to a standard police procedural serial killer story. Sure, it’s more immediately evident in Blatty’s film because of the association with the Exorcist. Still, it’s interesting how both films switch gears in the same manner and build to more overtly demonic activity.

So, while a Longlegs/Silence of the Lambs double bill might feel right to some degree, a triple bill of these films and The Exorcist III would be even more fitting.