Director explains the real-life murder that inspired the Longlegs dolls

I never want to see these dolls again in my life

One of the most shocking and mysterious parts of the new horror hit Longlegs is the absolutely terrifying dolls created by serial killer Longlegs, and how they are connected to the gruesome family murders he has been committing for over 30 years. Longlegs director Osgood Perkins has just revealed that this doll twist was inspired by one of the most famous murders of all time – with a detail about the case that I actually didn’t know existed before.

SPOILERS AHEAD.

What do the dolls in Longlegs mean?

The third act of Longlegs tells how dolls of Lee’s own mother, dressed as a nun, are delivered to the families Longlegs wanted to kill. The dolls were made by Longlegs and had a satanic bullet in their head that had the psychic ability to make the master of the house kill the rest of the house before taking his own life. Gruesome stuff and the real moment where the film drifts into the supernatural.

Where did the idea for the unexpected puppets in “Longlegs” come from?

Osgood Perkins has revealed the true crime that inspired the Longlegs puppet twist – it’s actually the famous murder of JonBenét Ramsay.

In a recent interview with Inverse, Perkins explained, “If you want to give someone power with voodoo dolls, make a doll of them and poke it. If you want to overthrow a regime, make a doll of a politician and burn it in the street. Dolls, puppets, sculptures, statues, dolls — it was all part of the magic of the world I wanted to create.”

“The murder happened just before Christmas, and a gift that JonBenét’s parents had bought was a life-sized replica of herself, in one of her party dresses. It was in a box in the basement, five meters from where she was killed, and there was something so crazy about it that I catalogued it.”

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