Oz Perkins has immaculate taste in the horror genre but his take on the gothic medium of storytelling has been far more refined. Arguably, his previous film The Blackcoat’s Daughter which is a chilling experience in itself, and his most recent Longlegs, somehow redefined the perspective of the genre to a level that the director is propelled to believe that his horror movies are not similar to the contemporary films in the genre. Perkins recently shared that he will never watch any contemporary horror movie.
Oz Perkins Will Never Watch Contemporary Horror Movies
Longlegs director Oz Perkins and cinematographer Andres Arochi. Image Credit: Neon
Mia Goth-led Ti West’s horror trilogy, X has been one of the most talked about franchises in recent times. The final installment of the acclaimed movie series, MaXXXine is now showing in the theaters that was released ahead of Oz Perkins’ highly anticipated Longlegs starring Nicolas Cage and Maika Monroe. But Perkins recently told The Hollywood Reporters as he appeared for a chat with the outlet, that he will “never see MaXXXine… and Pearl.”
“I wouldn’t say I’m someone who likes or dislikes horror movies,” the Longlegs director said. “I don’t see new ones. I have no interest. I’ll never see MaXXXine, I’ll never see Pearl,” he added. However, Perkins watched the first installment of the trilogy, “I saw X for reasons,” but explained that it wasn’t on purpose. “I don’t see contemporary things. They don’t interest me at all, and that’s not to say that they aren’t great. I’m sure they are great and make a lot of people happy, which is all that really matters.”
“But I like the horror genre because it’s the genre that permits the most invention and it encourages the most poetry. It’s all guessing and grasping at what is essentially unknowable. At least that’s what it is for me.”
The director is scared to put something contemporary into his brain, “to see a contemporary Terrifier or things like that, it’s the opposite of what I want to be putting into my brain,” he added. Rather, he would invest his time watching Tod Browning’s Dracula for the romanticism and the luxury “and the pomp and circumstance and the majesty of that kind of work” that turns him on.
Oz Perkins’ Dislike For Contemporary Horror Connects To His Father’s Cinematic Legacy
Anthony Perkins in Psycho. Image Credit: Universal Pictures/Paramount Pictures
Oz Perkins who is the son of the late legendary star Anthony Perkins explained that his taste in horror movies always has a connection to his father’s legacy. Anthony Perkins who made his name known to the world with his astonishingly terrifying performance of a killer, Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s one of the all-time greatest movies, Psycho, later delivered some terrible horror movies in his career.
“My dad was, on the one hand, a real shining light in the genre space, having created one of the more indelible characters in movies, nevermind in horror movies or in crime movies and killer movies. So there was the intense radiating pride around that that was mixed with this very uneasy thing that was happening,” Perkins told THR.
When the Longlegs director was getting into movies as he turned 13 or 15, his father was “making very bad movies, very bad horror movies.” He was being paid well “to go to Europe and do sh–t. And it was obvious that this stuff was sh–t; it used to upset my mom [Berry Berenson] quite a lot,” he added.
The stark contrast in the quality of movies by his father, as the director revealed, planted a seed of “uneasiness” in him around the horror genre.
MaXXXine and Longlegs are now showing in the theaters.
