Oz Perkins is no stranger to the public eye. His parents — fashion model Berry Berenson and "Psycho" star Anthony Perkins — were both celebrities. He's no stranger to darkness either: His father was forced to live a life in the closet, and his mother died in one of the planes hijacked during the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
It's a lot for one person's family history. Maybe because of this, horror movies have always been a part of Oz Perkins' life. His fourth film, "Longlegs," is his scariest.
It follows FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) as she tracks down an Oregon serial killer (Nicolas Cage). It's poised to be a major breakthrough for the director, thanks in part to a herculean marketing campaign from distributor Neon. It's also completely terrifying, crafting an atmosphere of unrelenting dread.
One of Perkins' most formative experiences was watching Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining." He remembers the first time he saw it. "We used to take our summer vacations in Cape Cod, Mass.
, and we watched it in a house with these glass walls, and you could sort of see out into the woods," the director, 50, recalls via a Zoom call from his Los Angeles home. "I remember trying to sleep with that backdrop. It was a rough night.
" When it comes to writing screenplays, Perkins always draws from his own experiences. "I made a decision early on that characters are going to essentially stand in for me in some way or another," he says. The description of the glass-walled home where he watched "T.