The ending of Nicolas Cage’s new horror Longlegs is inspired by one of the best thrillers of all time

After all the hype around the horror movie Longlegs, the new thriller is now out in theaters. And if you’ve seen the Osgood Perkins movie, then you’ll know that not everything is tied up neatly in the final act. Below, we get into the details of what happens in our Longlegs ending explained, as well as what the director has to say about the conclusion. But of course, this article contains spoilers for Longlegs so make sure you’ve seen the film before reading on.

Longlegs ending explained *SPOILERS*

(Image credit: Neon)

After weeks of tracking Nicolas Cage’s creepy serial killer Longlegs, Maika Monroe’s Lee Harker realizes that she’d actually met him many years prior. Yes, that prologue was actually her as a little girl when Longlegs visited her home as a child. She confronts him in an FBI interview room about who his accomplice was, as the details suggest he had someone helping him all along.

Longlegs kills himself after telling her to talk to her mother, Ruth (Alicia Witt). Harker goes to her family home, where she finds her mother with a shotgun and the truth comes out. Longlegs has been living in their family basement building evil dolls that possess people to carry out the horrific murder-suicides, and Ruth has been helping him. She’s the one who goes into people’s homes with the dolls, telling them they’ve won them through the church, before unleashing the deadly Satanic magic.

However, Harker collapses before she’s able to stop her mother from descending on her next target: Agent Carter and his family. She rushes to his home where her mother is already sitting with the doll, but it seems like she may be too late. Carter goes into the kitchen with his wife, killing her off screen, before walking out into the living room, set to kill his daughter. Luckily, Harker shoots him and her mother before he can.

Not everything is tied up though, as she runs out of bullets before she can shoot the doll, meaning that we don’t find out what happens to her and the young girl. The movie ends back on Longlegs who blows a kiss to the camera, and says, “Hail Satan”.

How do the dolls work in Longlegs?

(Image credit: Neon)

One of the biggest mysteries remaining at the end of Longlegs is just how the dolls work. There seems to be something Satanic and supernatural about them, teased earlier during the autopsy scene too, but it’s never explicitly explained. It seems this was a purposeful choice from Perkins.

Asked by Variety if he has an explanation, the director replied: “I do, but I won’t say. It’s part of the playfulness of the devil. Wouldn’t it be kind of amazing if you brought a doll into someone’s house and it made everybody crazy? That’s sort of funny and weird. It’s almost like, ‘You fucked up and let him in. You didn’t have to sign for that!'”

Perkins also told the publication that some decisions in this ending were inspired by one of the best serial killer thrillers ever made too: David Fincher’s Seven. In particular, the decision to kill Longlegs before the end of the movie, after the FBI bring him in. 

“I think Kevin Spacey has three or four scenes, right? He gives himself up, he’s in the thing and then he’s in the car and there’s the end,” Perkins explained. “He’s always present, which we had with Cage too like, there’s a presence of this thing, but once you get to the guy, it’s almost anticlimactic. Of course, he becomes very climactic in Se7en, but I love the fact that John Doe gave himself up. We wanted to sort of, ‘rip off’ is not the right word, ‘borrow’ is more close to what we were doing.”

Longlegs is out now. For more, check out what the director had to say about true crime inspiration, directing Cage, and what inspired his look in the movie.

We’ve also got guides to the best horror movies of all time and all the upcoming horror movies out in 2024 and beyond.