Longlegs – Film

In 1970s Oregon, a young girl with a Polaroid camera follows a mysterious voice and encounters an erratic man in pale makeup.

In the 1990s, FBI agent Lee Harker, who exhibits possible clairvoyance, is assigned by her supervisor William Carter to a case involving a series of murder-suicides in Oregon. Each case involves a father killing his family and himself, leaving behind a letter with Satanic coding signed “Longlegs”, whose handwriting belongs to none of the family members. Lee discovers that each family had a 9-year-old daughter born on the 14th of the month, the murders all occurred within six days before or after the birthday itself, and the murders form an occult triangle symbol on a calendar, with one date missing. While talking to her mother Ruth, Lee receives a coded birthday card from Longlegs, warning her that revealing the source of the code will lead to her mother’s murder.

Following a clue, Lee and Carter find a doll with a high-energy metal orb inside. Despite Carter’s skepticism of the supernatural, Lee theorizes that Longlegs uses these orbs to possess people as each family received a similar doll. After visiting Carrie, the sole survivor of Longlegs’s attacks, who was visited previously by someone using Lee’s name, Carter suspects Lee’s connection to Longlegs. Discovering that Ruth had filed a police report of an intruder approaching Lee on her ninth birthday, Carter encourages Lee to talk to her. Ruth directs Lee to childhood belongings, where she finds a Polaroid of the pale-faced man, revealing Longlegs to be the man who had visited a young Lee on her birthday. Lee submits the photo, leading to Longlegs’s arrest. Realizing the missing date is that day, Lee fears an accomplice will commit another murder. In the interrogation room, Longlegs claims to serve “the man downstairs” and hints at Ruth’s involvement before killing himself.

Agent Browning drives Lee to her mother’s home, where Lee witnesses Ruth murder Browning with a shotgun. Ruth then destroys a doll resembling young Lee, causing Lee to lose consciousness. Lee sees that Ruth has been Longlegs’s accomplice since Lee’s childhood. Longlegs forced Ruth to choose between her daughter’s death and his bidding, leading her to comply and spare Lee. Longlegs has lived in the Harker basement, creating Satanic dolls that Ruth, posing as a nun, delivered to families, causing them to kill each other. Lee’s doll blocked her memories of Longlegs while influencing her with his magic.

Lee awakens in the basement and hears a demonic voice on the phone warning her about William’s daughter Ruby’s ninth birthday party, which had been scheduled for that day. Lee rushes to save the Carters, whose deaths would complete Longlegs’s triangle. She finds the family already possessed, with Ruth having delivered the doll. After William kills his wife Anna, Lee shoots him to protect Ruby. Ruth attacks with a dagger, forcing Lee to kill her. Lee tries to destroy the doll but runs out of ammunition. She tells Ruby they need to leave, but Ruby remains frozen, staring at the doll.