What happens to Lee Harker

Long legs' the ending is chilling, involving multiple deaths and revelations. Written and directed by Osgood Perkins, Long legs reviews were mostly positive. Starring Maika Monroe and Nicolas Cage in one of their most iconic roles to date, Long legs ends with the titular character's arrest. After decoding many of the letters Longlegs left at the crime scenes, Agent Lee Harker revisited her own past to discover that she was one of the girls the killer had targeted. With a photo revealing Longlegs' identity, the FBI was finally able to capture him.

Longlegs talks about a “friend of a friend” And quotes Revelation 13:1 before banging his head to death. Harker visits his mother to find out the truth. Ruth kills Lee's colleague and Lee's doll, claiming she is free before revealing that she made a deal with Longlegs – she would deliver the handmade dolls to each family and ensure the murders took place as long as he let Lee live. Harker goes to see the family of Agent Carter, who was the target. Carter kills his wife, but Lee shoots him afterward. Harker also kills Ruth, but when she goes to shoot the doll at the end of Long legsshe freezes.

Is Agent Lee Harker under Longlegs' control at the end?

Harker stares at Ruby's doll for a long time

At the end of Long legs, Harker tries to shoot the doll the same way Ruth shot hers. Harker's gun can be heard firing, but either there are no more bullets or the safety is on (which is unlikely, considering she had just killed her mother). Harker could have reloaded the gun, but she was glued in place, frozen as she stared hypnotically at the doll. Longlegs' artisanal creation appears to have influence over Harker, preventing the FBI agent from killing him. It's possible that Harker is now under the doll's – and by extension, Longlegs' – manipulation.

It may just be her terror, but the doll overpowers Harker, who is in a trance. Although she may eventually come to her senses and shoot the doll, it is likely that Harker is drawn to this because Longlegs' influence was a big part of her life for a long time. Through the doll, Longlegs is still able to go beyond the grave. Its impact is still felt, and it's possible the doll will keep Harker in its clutches until the task is completed. Ruby is still alive and Longlegs can use Harker to finish the job he and Ruth started.

Longlegs and Ruth Harker quoting Revelation 13:1 explained

The 2024 film has satanic overtones

It's unclear why Nicolas Cage's Longlegs started killing families, but he and Ruth Harker cited Revelation 13:1 shortly before they died, which mentions a beast with seven heads and ten horns. The beast in question can be interpreted as being the Antichrist or a demon who emerges from the sea to receive the authority and power of the dragon, Satan, to carry out his orders. There is a second beast that appears in later chapters. In the film, Longlegs and Ruth are the beasts. They deceive and control families, each believing they are receiving a gift from the church.

At the beginning of Long legsRuth asks Harker if she is saying her prayers. At the end of the film, Ruth changes her tone and says something like prayers being useless. Ruth is an example of someone being manipulated by the original beast, Longlegsto commit evil acts. Ruth believes they are necessary to save her daughter, but she has been corrupted to the point that even after being free of Longlegs, Ruth's help in killing families continues. She became the second beast and, with the dragon and the Longlegs, are the inverse of the Holy Trinity.

What Families Hear After Receiving a Longlegs Doll

Details are never revealed

Longlegs hand makes dolls that Ruth gives to each family, but the hollow silver sphere inside the doll's head does not directly give them instructions. At least not in the usual sense. But there is a distinct sound emanating from the silver orb. They sound like static whispers that only the family can hear. It's scary and puts family members in a trance they can't snap out of. The silver orb is hollow, but it has been revealed that Longlegs passes a part of himself through each doll, and it's possible that families are hearing his voice whispering indistinctly to them.

Why Longlegs targets families with daughters whose birthdays are on the 14th

Connection returns to quote

Longlegs is a serial killer with a methodical approach: he targets families who have daughters born on the 14th day of any month. The murders take place six days before or after the birthday, which probably symbolizes the three number sixes that appear in the code. Long legs does not confirm the reason behind the 14th birthday, but could refer to Revelation 13:1 – 13+1 is 14. Seven is a significant number in the Bible, and twice that represents completeness, as well as divinity and liberation. Longlegs may have believed he was freeing families through death.

Furthermore, the number 14 could refer to the seven-headed beast. The implication is that there are two animals (Longlegs and Ruth), and 14 is twice as many as seven. Longlegs and Ruth cited Revelation 13:1, indicating the importance it had in their work. It also implies that the beast with seven heads can multiply. After all, the serial killer was never truly alone in his work. Even before he died, Longlegs was confident that his work would continue because the seed was already planted. The two beasts and the dragon essentially form the three sides of the triangle.

How Longlegs' Ending Sets Up a Sequel

Harker and Ruby could have more stories to tell

Long legs ends on a cliffhanger, with the audience unsure what comes next for Harker or Ruby. Both “beasts” are dead at the end of Long legsbut the doll has not yet been destroyed, which means Longlegs, from beyond the grave, could pass the torch to Harker to carry out his order in a Long legs sequence. The fact that Harker doesn't shoot the doll suggests that she is now under some kind of spell. If she becomes like the serial killer she tried to stop, it would be an interesting path to take in a horror movie sequel.

Whatever the case, the Long legs the ending leaves Harker and Ruby alive and a sequel could explore what happens to them next. Will they both become the “beasts” who deceive families and force them to kill, like Longlegs and Ruth before them? It is not an impossible scenario considering the events of Long legsand it would be an intriguing path to take, contrasting with how Harker is presented in the original story. The story could go anywhere, and Harker is a fascinating character to continue following on whatever journey awaits her.

The true meaning of Longlegs' ending

Long legs has many layers, and although it is filled with religious references, The film's ending suggests the disintegration of the nuclear family. Longlegs might have gone after the children, but he also targeted the parents, while having the father inflict violence on his wife and daughter. It is very targeted and focuses on the deterioration of this specific family structure; notably, Harker is the only one who reached adulthood and was raised in a single-mother family. At the same time, Long legs'The ending suggests that violence can enter any home, no matter how healthy the family.

The end of the film also indicates that anyone – no matter how good they think they are as a person – can be influenced to do horrible and violent things whether they think they are protecting someone or that they are doing it for the right reasons. All characters, at one time or another, are forced or influenced to do something violent; It's something they might never have dreamed of doing. Harker even kills his own mother to save someone else at the end of Long legsand the cycle of damage continues.

How Long Legs' Ending Was Received

Bizarre horror won over critics

Long legs was incredibly well-received by critics, with director Osgood Perkins' 2024 horror holding an 86% audience rating Rotten tomatoes Tomatometer – an impressive feat. The main strengths of Long legs, Outside of Nicolas Cage's performance were Perkins' story and directing skills. The film's tone appears in several reviews as being exceptionally strong, with the overall feeling of mystery and unrelenting dread being celebrated.

Long legs is an atmospheric horror film at its core, and it more than delivers when it comes to atmosphere. The cinematography seemed to take precedence when it came to aspects that critics focused on in their reviews, receiving more comments than the plot and ending of Long legs. For example, in Wendy Ide's review for The Guardian, the critic talks at length about the masterful way in which Perkins weaves images of triangles into the film:

Perkins clearly has his sights set on a stunning image. At first we are struck by a recurring motif of obsessive symmetry in each scene and a proportion that alternates between the small box reminiscent of home footage from a 70s flashback and the full smile of a widescreen frame for the main story. , set in the 90s. But once Harker identifies the satanic emblem, the screen is full of angles and triangles (created by shooting the corners of rooms or foregrounding the zigzag of a staircase). Some of these shapes point upwards; more often they are reversed, perhaps subliminally signaling “the man down there,” as Longlegs coyly refers to the devil. Even the structure of the film takes on a tripartite form, with the story neatly divided into three chapters. There is an unexpected elegance in this window into unimaginable evil.

However, while Perkins has high praise for Long legs, she and many other critics have mentioned the ending negatively – although not in a way that is a major criticism of the story. Many felt that the final moments of the Long legs They were a little lackluster simply because they didn't focus on Nicolas Cage and his terrible portrayal of the titular villain. As Perkins says:

[Nicolas Cage’s character] It's ultimately related to one of the niggling problems with Long legs. Having created a potentially iconic horror villain, the film attempts to broaden the danger to encompass malevolent secondary characters. But since there's nothing in the film remotely as terrifying as Cage singing Happy Birthday and cackling like a maniac while wearing a rubber facial prosthetic, its bloody final act feels strangely anticlimactic.

This feeling of the end Long legs and the plot twists being somewhat anticlimactic compared to the opening are reflected by other critics. For example, Eliza Jensen writing to Raw cut film points out that the 2024 horror film's final scenes were overshadowed by its incredibly strong beginning:

I must admit that the patchwork plot of supernatural twists and character reveals doesn't live up to what's promised by that surprising opening scene. But as an especially shocking experiment and homage to the more satisfying serial killer films of the '70s and '90s, Perkins' chilling story works.