The Music of Longlegs
Spoilers ahead!
1. T. Rex
We had to start with the obvious. Even before the film begins we get a T. Rex reference with the title card reading: "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". The lyrics are from T. Rex's hit 'Bang a Gong (Get It On)' and references Jason and the Argonauts where after Jason kills the Hydra, he scartters its teeth that later grow into skeletons (Source: Genius). In "Longlegs", Lee's mother Ruth (and the accomplice of Longlegs himself) keeps her baby teeth, among other mementos. The song also plays during the film's end credits.
Later in the film, we see Nicholas Cage (Longlegs) seated under a poster of Marc Bolan in his basement room. He also plays T. Rex in his car. Director Oz Perkins declared the character was a glam rocker, once upon a time. Yes, a glam rocker who happened to stumble upon Satan, as one does. Similar to that of "Jennifer's Body", when the fictional indie band, Low Shoulder, attempts to offer a virgin sacrifice to Satan in exchange for fame and fortune.
2. The pale face makeup
"As IndieWire reported, [Longlegs'] white makeup was taken directly from the physical appearance of Bob Dylan during his 'Rolling Thunder Revue' tour". (Source: IndieWire)
3. The cosmetic surgery
"According to the movie’s press notes, Longlegs’ face is a result of repeated plastic surgeries gone wrong" Tasha Robinson reported to Polygon. Harlow MacFarlene, the film's special effects artist, stated "Oz always had this glam rock vibe in his head.”
"The big hair, the garish makeup, the superficial aesthetic fixation that might lead a person to go under the knife so they could remain forever young" (Source: Polygon). A possible nod to Michael Jackson.
I am also reminded of Dead or Alive's Pete Burns (TOP LEFT).
4. The subliminal messaging through backwards music
Listen we all tried to listen to 'Revolution 9' backwards. No? Just Me? Cool. Well, the Beatles' "White Album" is actually a good place to start. In the late 1960s, there was a lot of hoopla about hidden messages in Beatles songs if they were to be played in reverse. The song, 'I'm So Tired' for example, really leaned into the Paul is dead conspiracy with fans insisting John Lennon says "Paul is a dead man. Miss him. Miss him". With "Longlegs", sound designer Eugene Battaglia was instructed by Perkins that it would be a "rock 'n' roll film":
“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." (Source: IndieWire)
Circling back to the Beatles, it was the "White Album" that made Charles Manson believe they were reaching out to him through Revelation 9 (Book of Revelation). Verse 3 states "out of the smoke came forth locusts" and he believed those locusts to be Beatles. He also believed Verse 15 to be a prophecy of 'Helter Skelter' and we know what happened there. And maybe I'm reading too much into things, but hear me out: in "Longlegs", the killer targets young girls, who along with their parents are to be killed 6 days before or after their 9th birthday and the character of Lee can be seen investigating a book on the Nine Circles of Hell. Chills.
Back to the subliminal messaging. In "Longlegs", a lot of the sound for the film is actually reversed and filled with those hidden messages. One being "Give Longlegs a good score on Rotten Tomatoes". Hilarious. And finally back to T. Rex, when Oz Perkins told Nicholas Cage about his muse, Cage explained that his son was learning guitar and the day prior he had played him the backwards guitar solo on 'Cosmic Dancer'...by T. Rex.
Afterall, rock 'n roll is the devil's music.
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