‘Longlegs’ and ‘Trap’ Slay Like It’s 1995
The summer box office has been partying like it’s 1995. Neon’s Longlegs has shattered records, sitting pretty at an almost $80 million global cume against a meager $10 million budget. M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap released this past weekend, grossing $20 million in its opening bow, a solid start for Shyamalan’s $30 million, self-funded serial killer thriller. And, really, serial killing is the name of the game. The serial killer box office of the 1990s dovetailed down two distinct paths—the elevated, brooding procedurals like Seven and The Silence of the Lambs, and the high-concept, glossy thrills of titles like Copycat and The Bone Collector. In an era of legacy sequels and looking for a path forward in the past, Longlegs and Trap conceptualize the best of what distributors should be doing. Target the feelings—relish the vibes—rather than reviving the properties themselves.
M. Night Shyamalan pitched Trap as The Silence of the Lambs meets Taylor Swift’s The Era’s Tour. Oz Perkins echoed similar sentiments for Longlegs, which is widely agreed to be the scariest movie of the year. Perkins remarked to Letterboxd shorthand inspiration from the likes of both David Fincher’s Seven and Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs. It’s easy, and frankly discouraging, to imagine a world where rather than Trap or Longlegs, genre fans were instead treated to simple, direct remakes of their clear inspirations. It’s only a matter of time before Blumhouse’s The Silence of the Lambs arrives in, say, 2029.
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Broadly, remakes, sequels, and prequels aren’t innately problematic. Against all odds, Arkasha Stevenson’s assured hands rendered The First Omen one of the year’s best horror movies, franchise or otherwise. Still, in an era of diminishing returns and the decline of the theatrical experience, executives and major studios too regularly concede to rehashing surefire hits rather than trying to target what this moment in theatrical history needs to remain viable.
Jon Amiel’s serial killer procedural Copycat, released in 1995, grossed an estimated $79 million, not adjusted for inflation. Like Trap, it took a high-concept premise, known faces (Holly Hunter and Sigourney Weaver), and a fondness for the weirdly macabre and combined them into a win for both audiences and studio accountants. When something like Trap releases, it’s a joy not only because Shyamalan remains one of this era’s greatest genre craftsmen, but also because it feels like a look back at how the theatrical schedule used to be.
Phillip Noyce’s The Bone Collector, released in 1999, wouldn’t stand up to this era’s CinemaSins narrative fidelity. Denzel Washington’s Lincoln Rhyme, a quadriplegic detective, teams with Angelina Jolie’s recruit Amelia Donaghy to track a New York serial killer. The forensic gobbledygook is Criminal Minds-lite, but it doesn’t matter, chiefly because Noyce is a talented filmmaker, Washington, and Jolie commit to the bit, and The Bone Collector isn’t afraid to get a little (a lot) silly. As a result, The Bone Collector collected a solid $151 million globally.
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In years past, horror had been broadly considered the theatrical experience’s savior. This year, however, the outlook has been grimmer. Some like Longlegs and A Quiet Place: Day One have worked against the odds, but theatrical exhibition has been waning more rapidly than before. There are a lot of reasons, of course—rising costs, ballooning budgets, streaming, shortened theatrical windows. And given the myriad symptoms, there’s no singular solution. I’d reckon, however, that looking at what worked before and making an earnest effort to replicate that, rather than outright copy it, might yield something remarkable.
After all, audiences are loving Longlegs and Trap, and both could easily supplant themselves to the 1990s without anyone noticing. Distinctly, both manage to borrow the best of what made those 90s procedural thrillers work while ensuring they’re updated, and adjusted, for the present day. Longlegs is explicitly set in the 1990s, yes, but it is also imbued with Perkins’ trademark, distinctly contemporary anxieties. The same could be said of Trap. Its serial killer profiling is so Alex Cross, but Shyamalan’s technical prowess is the result of years of experience. It’s a throwback made by a master.
Serial killers on their own won’t be enough, of course. The 90s trend continued into the early aughts, and those results were less than stellar. I have a particular fondness for D.J. Caruso’s Taking Lives, but with a $65 million haul against a $45 million budget, I’m pretty much alone in that sentiment. And Chris Sivertson’s I Know Who Killed Me? I have a fondness for that, too, but as one of the last bonafide serial killer procedurals released wide during that era, its $9.7 million box office take was as clear a sign as any that audiences were tired.
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In time, the serial killer trend will wane again. The success of Longlegs and Trap says nothing of audience sensibilities a few years from now. But why not keep the spirit of the 1990s alive? Rather than another Scream or an I Know What You Did Last Summer legacy sequel, why not go full-tilt The Faculty, a teen scream classic that supplanted Scream’s sensibilities into Jack Finney’s seminal novel The Body Snatchers? The Hand That Rocks the Cradle grossed $140 million in 1992. Ma grossed $61.2 million in 2019. Put an A-list actor in an R-rated domestic thriller, you cowards. What I’m saying is there’s always money in the 1990s banana stand.
As wonderful as it is to see genre successes, they’re marred by the overarching fear they won’t be enough. They’re distinct surprises, not products of a concerted effort to save a sinking theatrical ship. Before summer comes to a close, be sure to check out Trap and Longlegs. They’re the best serial killer thrillers this side of 1997’s Kiss the Girls. And, if their lesson is taken to heart, they just might be part of the salvation the theatrical experience needs. I promise it will be a killer experience.
Categorized:Editorials
