Let’s admit it; the horror movie marketing playbook is a predictably well-trodden path. Roll out the monster, cue the jump scares, rinse and repeat. Every other horror film pats itself on the back with a prompt, “the scariest of the decade”, flashing across the screen, waxing lyrical of its niche new indie filmmaker’s experimental new take on the genre, “never seen before”.
But Neon has been doing things. Freaky things . The production company’s marketing team has orchestrated a symphony of suspense that somehow feels like a cold sweat on a sultry summer night.
It’s a remarkably Hitchcockian exercise in stoking fear and curiosity, making your skin crawl before a single frame has flickered on the screen. Neon has managed to carve out a unique space for Osgood Perkins’ Longlegs ; their approach to the much anticipated crime-horror has been to embrace the unknown and make it the film’s central draw. The initial teaser was very nonchalantly dropped back in January.
It was a visual enigma — a 36-second clip featuring creepy images of blood-soaked rooms and a haunting 911 call. No plot spoilers, no clear hints, just a tantalisingly vague glimpse into something terrifying. Enough to send the internet into a frenzy, with fans dissecting every frame with forensic precision in search for answers.
Neon’s strategy is a love letter to the viral marketing playbooks of found-footage stalwarts, Cloverfield and The Blair Witch Project , where mystery has always been th.