Longlegs' Dolls Explained: Their Purpose, Power, & Real-Life Inspiration

Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Longlegs!

Summary Creepy dolls in Longlegs are integral to the killer's plan, with a mysterious and Satanic influence over families.

Lee Harker's psychic powers come from a doll made in her likeness, connected with the silver ball in its head.

The dolls in Longlegs draw inspiration from the tragic real-life murder of JonBenét Ramsey, adding a dark layer to the film.

The many creepy dolls are some of the most memorable parts of Longlegs, with the film remaining pretty vague about their purpose, power, and real-life inspiration. Besides being a horror film, Longlegs is also a mystery, with Lee Harker spending most of the film investigating the truth behind Nicolas Cage's Longlegs serial killer. Although Harker has most of her questions answered by the end of Longlegs, there is still a lot of mystery surrounding the film by the time the credits roll. Of all of these lingering Longlegs mysteries, however, the dolls are one of the biggest.

Throughout most of Longlegs, Lee Harker and her FBI coworkers are faced with an interesting predicament. While Harker is certain that Nick Cage's Longlegs killer is somehow involved in the murders, the FBI has no evidence that he ever entered any of the victims' homes. Thus, Harker has to figure out how Longlegs is convincing the fathers of each family to commit murder. Throughout her investigation, Harker eventually discovers that Longlegs' dolls play a key role in his murder spree, with their true nature being one of the scariest parts of the film.

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Why Longlegs Uses The Dolls

He Creates Them Himself

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The dolls are one of the creepiest parts of Longlegs' plan, with them being integral to how he convinces each family to murder each other. As the end of Longlegs reveals, the titular killer is also a dollmaker, with him making dolls that bear the likenesses of girls whose birthdays happen to be on January 14. Longlegs' dolls are imbued with Satanic powers, with the figures' evil nature sprouting from Longlegs' Devil worship. After making the dolls, however, Longlegs is mostly hands-off, with him passing the toys along to his accomplice: Lee Harker's mother.

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Longlegs' plan initially involved him simply killing the kids, but after meeting Ruth Harker when Lee was a child, he and Satan came up with a different system. In Longlegs, Ruth dresses up as a nun and goes to the houses of the hand-picked victims. Once there, she explains that the families have won a gift from the church. She presents the dolls to the families, with them gratefully taking the toy in, unaware of the carnage that Ruth has brought to their doorstep.

Longlegs has plans for the dolls that go past their murderous potential, however. As Lee Harker discovers, Longlegs also used one of the dolls as a clue to get Lee on his trail. While investigating the Longlegs murder case, Lee and Agent Carter discover a disheveled doll that was hidden under the floorboards at the top of a farmhouse, with Longlegs having led the officers to find it. This is what allows Lee Harker to finally interact with the killer, then allowing Longlegs to end his own life.

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The Dolls Give Lee Harker Psychic Powers

Thanks To The Silver Balls In Their Heads

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The dolls are far more than just toys, however, as they have some dark effects on the people who they take their likeness from. Early on in Longlegs, it is revealed that Lee Harker has what Agent Carter refers to as half-psychic powers. Harker's intuition allows her to know exactly where to look at the right time, such as when she is looking for a killer at the beginning of the film. Harker even states that it's as if an entity is tapping on her shoulder and telling her where to look, setting up the mystery of where these powers come from.

Near the end of Longlegs, it is revealed that Longlegs made a doll of Lee, with this being the source of her powers. It is implied that the silver ball inside the head of the doll has a psychic connection to Harker, with Harker even passing out when Ruth destroys it with her gun. It is also implied that this same psychic intuition is given to each of the girls who Longlegs models dolls after. After all, Lee Harker visits a girl who survived one of Longlegs' murders, with her having the instinct to leave the house before her father murdered everyone there.

The Dolls Tell Families To Kill Each Other

Due To Their Satanic Nature

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We haven't even gotten to the darkest purpose of the dolls, however. The true reason that Longlegs needs to get the dolls into the houses of his victims is that they tell the families to kill each other. As the film explains, the Satanic nature of the dolls has a psychic influence on those who are near them for extended periods of time. Each time that a doll is placed in the house, the family enters a strange trance, with the father eventually murdering everyone in the house and then ending his own life.

This is explicitly seen near the end of the film, when Harker goes to the Carter house for their daughter's birthday party. Upon arriving, Harker sees that her mother has put a doll in the house. This doll not only impacted the father, but the mother and daughter, too. Agent Carter's wife knows that her husband is about to murder her, but she willingly goes into the kitchen with him anyway, wearing a pained smile the whole time. Meanwhile, Carter's daughter won't let go of the doll, with Harker knowing that the only way to save them is to destroy it.

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Longlegs' Dolls Were Inspired By A Real-Life Murder

The Murder Of JonBenét Ramsey

One fact about Longlegs' dolls makes them even more frightening, as they were actually inspired by a real-life murder. Longlegs director Osgood Perkins explained the dolls' origins, with him hearing about the case that they come from, before writing the film. The dolls are based on the tragic real-life murder of JonBenét Ramsey, a child beauty pageant participant who was killed at only six years old. The murder took place before Christmas, and near where Ramsey's body was found, the family kept a Christmas gift that was a life-size doll that resembled the child.

Although there was undoubtedly no Satanic purpose to the real-life doll, Perkins found this detail of the murder fascinating, with him using it as inspiration when writing Longlegs. These dolls became a key plot point in the film, with it seeming as if Perkins came up with a fantastical explanation for the murder. While connecting the fictional film to the tragic real-life murder is dark, it is interesting to know where one of Osgood Perkins' big inspirations came from when writing Longlegs.