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SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains massive spoilers for Longlegs and its ending. If you have not yet seen the film, proceed at your own risk!
Osgood Perkins’ Longlegs is an atypical cinematic experience. As noted in my five star review for CinemaBlend, the film drowns movie-goers in a deep ocean of terror and never lets us come up for air, and it unfolds a mystery full of dark turns and surprises. Given its intensity, darkness, and twists, it can be forgiven if you couldn’t totally wrap your mind around what happens in the conclusion of the story – but for those of you who feel that way, we’ve got you covered.
Longlegs is one of the best horror movies in recent memory, and in an effort to help all of you readers better grasp and understand it, we’ve put together this Longlegs ending explained guide to help break down the film’s conclusion. To start, let’s do a quick recap of what plays out in the feature’s third act.
What Happens At The End Of Longlegs
The beginning of the end of Longlegs can be pinned to when Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) drives with Agent Browning (Michelle Choi-Lee) back to Lee’s childhood home – convinced that Dale Ferdinand Cobble (Nicolas Cage) could not have worked alone. The protagonist goes into the house alone looking for Ruth, her mother (Alicia Witt), and while she does so, Ruth sneaks around to the car and kills Browning with two blasts from a shotgun. Witnessing the second shot, Lee goes outside to confront her mother and finds her pointing her weapon at a doll that looked like her when she was a child. Ruth blows the doll’s head off, and as smoke wreaths from the remains, Lee passes out.
While she is unconscious, Lee understands the full truth. Longlegs visited her house just before her ninth birthday and offered her mother a choice: either she and Lee would die, or she would agree to aid his efforts for “The Man Downstairs.” For years, she wore a nun habit and delivered dolls created by Cobble to families that never suspected ill intent.
When Lee wakes up, she is in Longlegs’ workshop, and when she exits, she realizes that she is in the basement of her mother’s house. The phone begins to ring, and when she answers, she understands that Cobble’s final target is the family of Agent Carter (Blair Underwood). Driving the serial killer’s car, she goes to the Carter house, but she finds that she is too late: her mother has already delivered a doll modeled after Ruby (Ava Kelders) and Carter is already under its evil influence. Carter kills his wife (Carmel Amit), but Lee kills Carter before he can get to his daughter. Feeling compelled to finish Longlegs’ work, Ruth says “Hail, Satan” and attacks with a dagger, but Lee shoots her in the middle of her forehead.
Lee tries to shoot the doll, but her gun is out of bullets, and Ruby remains entranced by it. The film concludes with footage of Longlegs in the interrogation room saying “Hail, Satan” and blowing a kiss at the camera.
What’s Up With The Dolls In Longlegs?
Longlegs doesn’t ultimately reveal too much about Dale Ferdinand Cobble and his backstory, but we do know two things about him: he worships the devil, and he expresses his devotion to his deity by constructing dolls that emit an evil influence. The dolls on the whole don’t appear to be anything particularly special (outside of their creepy likeness to the various birthday girls to whom they are delivered), but what makes them dangerous is that each one has a metal ball embedded in it that brings hateful and violent emotions to the surface.
Lee and Carter first discover this when they go to the Camera farm and find the doll that has been hidden in the barn. It’s in the remains of the toy modeled after Carrie Ann Camera (Kiernan Shipka) that the FBI agents first discover the existence of the ball, and its negative effects make themselves apparent, though they aren’t totally understood. Lee finds herself struck by visions of snakes and Longlegs in his workshop when an ultrasound wand is run over the ball, and the examiner claims that he heard the name of his ex-wife repeated over and over again.
The effects of the ball seem to take hold for a long time. In this case of Carrie Ann Camera, she was left in a state of catatonia until her doll was unearthed by the FBI, and even after that, she was still completely under the thrall of Longlegs/the devil. Carrie Ann’s ball never gets destroyed, and a consequence is that she kills herself around the same time that Dale Ferdinand Cobble does.
Why Doesn’t Lee Remember Anything About Longlegs?
Understanding the effect that the doll has on Carrie Ann Camera also helps one grasp why it is that Lee has such a difficult time solving the Longlegs case despite it being so close to home for her. There is clearly a part of her mind that wants the truth exposed (hence why she gives up her childhood dream of becoming an actor to go into law enforcement), but the supernatural influence of the devil prevents her from recognizing the truth of what’s happening and her mother’s involvement.
Following the bargain that Ruth made, the ball in the Lee doll keeps her unaware of her mother’s nefarious actions and even makes her completely forget meeting Dale Ferdinand Cobble on her ninth birthday. It’s only when the ball is destroyed (when Ruth shoots the Lee doll with her shotgun) that the blinders finally come off and the Longlegs protagonist is able to understand the full truth of what’s been going on under her nose for her entire life.
We don’t actually get to see Lee destroy the Ruby doll at the end of the movie, but we can hope that she doesn’t wait too long before getting around to do it.
Longlegs is now exclusively playing in theaters and just set an opening weekend box office record for Neon. To learn about all of the scary films that are on the way to theaters and streaming in the coming months, check out our Upcoming Horror Movies guide, and you can discover all of the features (regardless of genre) coming to theaters in the coming months with our 2024 Movie Release Calendar.