“Longlegs” opens with a title card with lyrics from “Get It On (Bang a Gong),” a 1971 track from the English rock band T. Rex, written by its frontman Marc Bolan: “Well you’re slim and you’re weak / You’ve got the teeth of the hydra upon you / You’re dirty, sweet, and you’re my girl.”
Neither the song nor those lyrics play a critical role in the audience’s understanding of the story, in which FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) is on the hunt for the elusive serial killer Longlegs (Nicolas Cage). While the look of Cage’s Longlegs is partially based on his character’s backstory as a former glam rocker, striking a similar silhouette to Bolan himself, writer/director Osgood Perkins told IndieWire the connections are far more cosmic than something tangible he can put his finger on. It was something Cage understood during his first call with Perkins to discuss the script, before he’d sign on to star in and produce the film.
“I’m feeling really confident [during the phone call], and at a certain point, I just kind of blurted out, because I know he’s a music guy, too, ‘Nic, I know how this might sound, it’s T. Rex,’” said Perkins, who recalled Cage immediately understanding. Perkins, in the IndieWire interview, impersonated (fairly impressively) Cage’s response: “‘It’s amazing you said that, Oz, because my kids learning to play the guitar, and yesterday, I played for him the backwards guitar solo on ‘Cosmic Dancer,’ [ending impersonation] Marc Bolan’s backwards guitar solo. Yesterday.” Perkins emphasized the word, letting it linger, before continuing, “I was like, there you go. Further proof that it’s correct.”
Unlike Cage, Perkins wasn’t familiar with T. Rex when he started “Longlegs.” They were simply a band he’d only heard of, but he didn’t know their music. Then, one night, the writer/director flipped on the Apple TV+ music doc series “1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything.” Perkins enjoyed the section about Bolan, and started listening to T. Rex music while he was writing.
“As the writer who’s essentially alone, I’m showing up every day to the computer by myself, no one’s there to help me, and it can be quite miserable at times. To my mind, I got to be open to what else is out there to help. Angels, whatever you want to call it,” said Perkins. “I started listening to [T. Rex] while I was writing, and it was like the universe, or the source, or the muse, or whatever you wanna call that saying, ‘I think it’s T. Rex.’”
To this day, Perkins sees T. Rex and “Longlegs” as a misfit combo, a somewhat illogical pairing. But there were things like the lyrical reference to “hydra,” a multiheaded snake monster from Greek mythology, and he’d just read “Book of Revelations” about a beast rising up out of the sea with 10 heads, 10 horns, and 10 crowns. Coincidence, probably, but Perkins sees his role as the writer as more passenger than a driver.
“You’re along for the ride, and I really do believe in the [idea that the] story knows what it is. You’re there to curate it and make sure it doesn’t go into a ditch,” said Perkins. “T. Rex just became correct. The humor of it became right, the language of it became right, the look became right, the affectation became right, and it just fit.”
1970s rock ’n’ roll did find its way into “Longlegs” in very tangible ways. As IndieWire reported, Longlegs was conceived as a former glam rock singer, and his white makeup was taken directly from the physical appearance of Bob Dylan during his “Rolling Thunder Revue” tour, and not surprisingly, the soundtrack contains some classic rock. But possibly the biggest parallel is in the sound design.
By the time sound designer and supervising sound editor Eugenio Battaglia came aboard “Longlegs,” Perkins was no longer beating around the bush about the film’s origins.
“When I was talking to [Perkins], he said, ‘It’s a horror film, but like Eug, I want you to know that more than anything, this is a rock ’n’ roll film,” said Battaglia.
One of Perkins’ instructions for Battaglia was giving the sense that something was being “projected to the mind” of Harker as she tracks Longlegs. So Battaglia understood there should be something hypnotic or trance-like about the aural world around the protagonist.
“So that just made me think, ‘Oh man, wouldn’t it be cool if this movie, given the fact that [‘Longlegs’] has themes of hypnotism and mind control, if it was just backed with subliminal stuff, like those ’70s rock records, with reverse sounds,” said Battaglia. He’s referencing what was commonly referred to as backmasking, a tape-to-tape backwards recording technique famously employed by The Beatles. Later, Christian groups accused bands like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Queen, and Styx of using it to subliminally promote Satanism.
Battaglia decided he would do the same, thinking of his soundscape as a scratchy LP (rather than a projector) that plays throughout the movie. He used a binaural microphone that records in 360 degrees, so sounds had more of an all-encompassing hypnotic feel, rather than as if coming from one specific direction.
“I just grabbed this 360 mic and rubbed [the windscreen] with my hands, and I just kind of whispered into [it], pretending to be Longlegs myself,” said Battaglia.
Some of what Battaglia whispered was nonsense. “‘Give “Longlegs” a good score on Rotten Tomatoes’” was one such example. But after a while, he got into it, doing research on the internet on “How to summon demons?” which led him to read and reverse the “Lord’s Prayer.” He even did a deep dive into the hidden messages on T. Rex albums, which, as best he could figure out, were largely about cars.
While Battaglia liked the idea of placing subliminal sounds in the soundtrack, the texture and feel of the sound he got from binaural mic reversing recordings justified the exercise. This sound technique combined with widescreen images, intentionally filled with empty space around Harker, gives a sense of a presence beyond what you can see in the frame, that something unseen is luring the detective and audience in a trancelike fashion.
And not all the reverse recordings were of Battaglia talking, for example, thumping, pulsing heartbeat sounds become a common theme throughout “Longlegs.” Leaning into the film’s theme of “a mystery downstairs,” per Battaglia, the sound effects editor recorded his footsteps stomping up and down the stairs of his studio, which he then reversed to create the hypnotic effect.
Battaglia thinks when audiences get a chance to watch “Longlegs” with a good set of headphones, they’ll get a truer sense of the 360-degree hypnotic recordings that call the two main characters to their destiny. And yes, if once the film comes out on home video, if you play “Longlegs” in reverse, you’ll likely hear the sound effects editor impersonating Longlegs saying some creepy and silly things. Chances are fans will do exactly that, as Neon’s marketing team has brilliantly run with the idea with hidden messages, including putting phone numbers on billboards where you can hear star Cage whisper threats in a creepy voice.
“Longlegs” is now in theaters.
