Nicolas Cage's Longlegs Had Maika Monroe On The Verge Of A Panic Attack

Spoilers for "Longlegs" follow.

"Longlegs" hit movie theaters this week, and it's already an unprecedented hit for indie studio Neon. Apparently, audiences have been craving horror-themed thrillers for adults (more like this, please and thank you Hollywood).

The film is centered around Lee Harker (modern scream queen Maika Monroe), a young FBI agent hunting a serial killer (Nicolas Cage) in 1990s Oregon. "Longlegs" is a clear "Silence of the Lambs" riff but director Osgood Perkins doesn't go for a straightforward procedural. When it comes time to explain the killer, he uses the same themes of supernatural evil as in his previous pictures ("The Blackcoat's Daughter," "Gretel & Hansel"), this time within the frame of the late 20th century Satanic panic.

Like many of the best serial killer movies, the killer himself (we'll just call him "Longlegs") isn't onscreen much; mysteries don't work if they spoon-feed the audience from the beginning. The film tees up how horrific he must look. The opening, set in the 1970s and shot in era-appropriate 4:3 analog, ends with a medium close-up of the killer, but with the top of his face cropped out of the frame. We can tell he looks wrong, from his puffy fish lips to his curly white hair.

Then once we do get a good view at him, he looks like a Heath-Ledger-as-the-Joker-themed granny drag queen. Perkins keeps a paused interrogation video close-up of Longlegs' face in the background of an exposition scene, keeping Longlegs' presence in the frame even when he isn't physically present. Monroe and Cage only share that one crucial scene and she hadn't even seen any photos of him in the makeup until they filmed it — so she was as unprepared for what he looked like as any audience member who walked into "Longlegs" was this past weekend.

Neon's marketing campaign for "Longlegs" included a video titled "Heartbeat," showing the first time that Monroe and Cage interacted on-set. The scene in question comes at the end of the film's second act, in which Harker goes to interrogate the imprisoned Longlegs, and is the only time they're onscreen together. (To keep his appearance a surprise and build up how terrifying it is, "Heartbeat" places a black box over Longlegs' face.)

The soundtrack of the scene is Monroe's heartbeat (captured by a microphone strapped to her chest), which picks up once she and Cage are in the same room. The video's closing text says her heart rate hit 170 beats per minute (BPM) — Monroe's resting heart rate is only 76 bpm. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Monroe said she "was freaking out, about to have a panic attack" during the scene: 

"There's so many things that were packed into that day. Seeing Nic for the first time in costume, I hadn't seen any photos or anything before, so that was shocking. Also, not only was I seeing Nic — or rather Longlegs — for the first time, but the cameras were rolling at this point. It was this very surreal, very nerve-wracking experience."

From how Monroe recounts the story, it sounds like she first met Cage while he was not just in costume, but in-character for the watching cameras. She had no frame of reference for the real Nicolas Cage and was metaphorically smacked in the face with his creepy make-up once she opened the door. Basically, Monroe came as close to meeting the real Longlegs as you can possibly get. Longlegs is a horrifying enough sight when there's a screen barrier between you and him. If I was in the same room as him, my heart would probably be beating as fast as Monroe's.

"Longlegs" is currently playing in theaters.