Longlegs: How NEON Marketed the Horror Film of the Year

On January 5 this year, independent film production and distribution company NEON dropped a 36-second teaser on YouTube titled "Every year there is another".

It shows one image: a family smiling at the camera at what seems to be a birthday party. A scratching, ominous score loiters beneath the sound of a tape scrolling where short bursts of a man's voice cry, "It's my daughter", "I gotta be quiet", and "That's not my daughter".

No film title. No cast. No release date. Just a photo and a cryptic scrawl of symbols on the end slate to inform that something was coming. We didn't yet know what – or who – it was, but NEON had piqued our interest.

That short 36-second teaser was priming an audience for the launch of the most exciting and effective marketing campaign for any film of the year.

How did Longlegs – a movie with a budget under $10 million – become many people's most anticipated of the year in a matter of weeks, land itself as the number-one movie in America (after Despicable Me 4), making over $22 million across its opening weekend, and managing all this while revealing hardly anything about the film? We did some digging to uncover its secrets.

Every step, there was a specific intention to do things differently. Oz Perkins was always striving for different with Longlegs. In our interview with the editors, Greg Ng and Graham Fortin told us that they were constantly asked: "What can we do that's new? How could we say this thing in a new way?"

NEON took Perkins' ethos and ran with it when it came time to distribute and market this film.

At every turn, the intention has been to subvert expectations. Before anyone on their marketing team acted upon an idea, they had to ask themselves, "Is this what is expected?" If the answer was yes, it was imperative they went in the opposite direction.

Longlegs' marketing campaign rejects how our minds have been trained to consume. In an age where TikTok is king, everything must be punchy. We must be in from the first second, or we'll effortlessly scroll to the next thing. But, through intrigue and mood alone, NEON had us hook, line and sinker.

Many marketing campaigns are taking advantage of their audience.

Consumerism is at its peak. People are brands, influencer culture is rapidly rising, and we unlock our phones or step outside to see a new "must-have" item demanding our attention eighty times a day. It's exhausting – impossible to keep up – and has resulted in a global renunciation of the act of selling.

Rejecting marketing has become its own trend; many Gen Z TikTokers now post "de-influencing" content, showing their decade-old eye shadow palette or the lip gloss they refuse to give up.

With films filling the multiplexes each week, studios have to work overtime to persuade us that their movie is the one that week worthy of taking our hard-earned cash.

So, how, in 2024, do you do to combat that?

NEON took the marketing for Longlegs back to "old-school showmanship".

When Hitchcock bought the rights to Robert Bloch's Psycho, he purchased as many copies of the novel as he could so that audiences didn't have a chance to learn the ending before his adaptation hit theaters.

In a video on the Oscar's YouTube channel, Hitchcock says, "I've suggested that Psycho be seen from the beginning. In fact, this is more than a suggestion. It is required."

Above the theater, a billboard says, "No one.. BUT NO ONE.. will be admitted to the theatre after the start of each performance of Psycho."

After a screening of Psycho, theaters offered a 25-minute handover time, which allowed audiences to avoid crossing paths where they might overhear any spoilers.

The result of this carefully crafted campaign, Vice President of Paramount Pictures, George Weltner, shared was “[Psycho was] established as one of the biggest grossers in the history of Paramount”.

The studio worked in partnership with theaters, and Mel Miller, the managing director of the Palace Theatre in Stamford, Connecticut, joined Weltner in affirming the effectiveness of the campaign. Miller said, "We did more business with Psycho than any other picture has done in our town in the past 30 years."

Such theatrics feel impossible to replicate in the 21st century, with social media spoiling the fun on every piece of media seconds after anything hits general release.

Whether it is down to an increase in the volume of motion pictures a studio is handling each year, a change in audience engagement, or – cynically – a lack of care, there has been a decline in authentic relationship building between studios and their audiences.

History tells us that leaning into showmanship and respectful marketing will reap rewards.

Longlegs makes the case that perhaps it is worthwhile to once again play with an audience if you want to get them out to see your movie.

While there was no grand theater policy for Longlegs, what NEON did do was invite us to become Lee Harker. They made us the detectives. Every piece of media put out for marketing was a new piece of the puzzle.

"Evidence" appeared overnight. Four posters were released, each one arriving at a different publication in 20-minute increments. Longlegs was leaving his clues behind, kicking off a chase that would last close to six months.

Our first "trailer" arrived in February, titled "You've got the teeth of hydra upon you". The 90-second preview was our first extended look at Maika Monroe as Harker, and that cryptic symbol, which had been floating around for weeks, finally morphed into the title "Longlegs".

From there, NEON ran with audience curiosity. When that 90-second preview landed, it kicked off a frenzy. People took to social media, calling it "the perfect teaser trailer" and saying, "Don't need to know what this is about, I'm already seated".

Once marketing saw that people were biting, they let the audience lead the way because what the audience creates in their heads has infinite possibility.

They brought out a website with 20 years worth of backstory for all of Longlegs' victims. A phone number appeared on billboards, leading to a spine-tingling recording of Nicolas Cage in character. Red posters – that are worth a closer look – were plastered across bus stops. The carefully curated techniques from NEON gave us the tools to solve the mystery of Longlegs without us even realizing it.

NEON sealed the deal the week of release by posting the actual heartbeat of Maika Monroe when she first saw Nicolas Cage as Longlegs on set.

"The director wanted to keep us separate," Monroe told Seth Meyers on his Late Night show. "I walked into the [interrogation] room, and there was Nic Cage in like- I mean, it was f*****g crazy." Monroe's heartbeat jumped from 76bpm to 170bpm just from seeing him, which psychologically primed the audience to walk into this movie with a feeling of fear.

Suddenly, Longlegs was no longer fiction because Monroe's fear was grounded in reality. That short video took the fear and terror of Cage's character and placed it in the real world, which the studio now has the proof from people's Apple watches to prove it wasn't just Monroe with the heartracing reaction.

For every tweet posted about the film on its opening weekend, there had to be just as many praising the marketing team for what they accomplished with this campaign. Rarely do we see thoughtful, creative work that reflects the filmmakers' efforts, but by replicating the Oz Perkins’ meticulous vision through its marketing materials, NEON managed to pull off an accomplishment as alluring and thoughtful as the film itself.

Not only did it pay off in respect, but also in financials. As Psycho did for Paramount, Longlegs became the biggest opening for NEON, showing what is possible when studios take their audiences seriously, respect what they are asking of us and sprinkle in a little bit of old-school showmanship for good measure.

Related: INTERVIEW: “Is That Meryl Streep?” — Longlegs’ Editors Recall People Seeing Nicolas Cage for the First Time