Longlegs: 3 terrifying money lessons you can learn from the horror film

When it’s dark and cloudy outside, what better way to clutch your umbrellas than by watching the fabulous actor play a serial killer in a film that will make you squirm long after the lights are turned on in the theatre?

Longlegs is not your everyday ordinary horror film with blood and gore you see on shows on OTT platforms. It’s a slow walk (one jump scare, that is super effective) through a gloomy, lonely Pacific NorthWest (Oregon, USA) where behind the door of cookie-cutter homes lurks a serial killer.

If that doesn’t send a shiver down your spine, then you will be stunned by the relentless threats this unknown killer has been issuing. The FBI with all its firepower is helpless: letters with strange occult like symbols and birthday greetings, death that give them no clues except that family members are killing one another gruesomely. 

FBI rookie agent Lee Harker (played by Maika Monroe) is a little oddly psychic person, decoding the letters by ‘staring at them long enough’ to make sense, living alone and is haunted by the serial killer who calls himself ‘Longlegs’. Her boss Agent Carter - played with understated dignity by Blair Underwood - is frustrated at why and how Lee Harker manages to unravel the mystery of Longlegs.

If you have seen Nicolas Cage only in Face/Off or National Treasure, then do yourself a favour. Subscribe to MUBi and watch Pig, or watch Mandy on Amazon Prime to understand what a range of emotions the actor can play with. No one else could have put a scare inside of you just by saying, ‘Happy Birthday!’ in that frail yet menacing trill as Longlegs does. And that voice is enough to haunt you in the film. He’s barely there on the screen, but when he does, his insanity explodes to make you worry about opening the door to your own home.

So what money lessons can you learn from a horror movie like Longlegs?

Fear is Real

The letters that the FBI collects have a promise. All those satanic symbols promise gruesome birthday deaths to families. And Longlegs doesn’t tell you why he’s killing families and how he manages to escape unnoticed. Agent Harker knows he has an accomplice… Longlegs is so brazen, he even shows up at Agent Harker’s home in the dead of the night and leaves a letter for her, and she only knows he’s watching her, that he’s a step ahead of the FBI.

Dear investor, look back at the very first step you took when you invested your hard earned money in stocks. You buried your head in information, hoping to make the best use of the money. Lots of advice came at you, asked and unasked for, confusing you even further. There were more naysayers than you’d imagined.

Whether it is the fear of volatile markets, or the fear of losing your nest egg to a wrong investment, the fears are real. As Warren Buffet has said, ‘If you cannot control your emotions, you cannot control your money.’

When everyone shifts to safer stocks in times of trouble e.g. investing in gold or silver, then smart investors look for wonderful companies to buy into rather than fear trades.

Sometimes fear itself drives the market down. If you persevere, then your knowledge will help you figure out investment opportunities of stocks of good companies at great prices.

Gifts on Birthdays

Longlegs targets little girls and their families… We are never told why, and the frustrated FBI only figures out the connections because Agent Lee Harker has an intuitive hunch. Is she the accomplice of Longlegs? The film takes you by the hand and leads you into this rabbit hole of murders and symbols that begin imprinting themselves into your own mind.

If you have received property or stocks and bonds as birthday gifts, they can be as scary as the film to deal with. There are taxes to be paid on everything. And yes, if you wish to give your money as a gift to those you love, or buy a property in their name, then be kind to them. Don’t let your gift be their tax burden. Ask or find out what gifting can cost them, and how much money, stocks you can give away.

Beware the Affinity Scams

Without giving the clues of the most insidious murders in Longlegs, let me steer you attention to how the families open their doors to the killer. The FBI has figured out that Longlegs must have had at least one accomplice who does his bidding. Who is that accomplice?

In real life Bernie Madoff targeted rich jewish families. If one invested, then others followed. Affinity scams usually target groups that belong to the same ethnic community, religious group and even profession. Don’t be fooled by highly persuasive sales people who try to invest your hard earned money in that scam and use your influencer group of friends and family to part with your money. Be alert and educate yourself.

Director Oz Perkins (Osgood Perkins) is the son of actor Anthony Perkins - the man who put the fear of stepping into showers into every generation that watched Psycho. Even though this film has many things common with the Mexican Film Dolly Dearest, you will not come away unaffected.

In fact, the fear that crawls slowly up your skin while you watch Longlegs, is like riding a slow cruise down the Amazon taking in the beauty of the rainforest when suddenly Nicolas Cage like the shark from Jaws appears, only to upturn your boat. Then as you are clinging for your life to some plank, it reappears, opens its mouth to release piranhas and swims around you grinning as the swarm of little fish slowly feeds on you.

Manisha Lakhe is a poet, film critic, traveller, founder of Caferati — an online writer’s forum, hosts Mumbai’s oldest open mic, and teaches advertising, films and communication. She can be reached on Twitter at @manishalakhe.