So it has taken me a while to figure this one out, but I think I’m now there. The movie is not perfect and has some failings in its props and codes throughout, but the central idea holds true, even if the creation of the piece is not consistent.
Overview
The timeframe and shape of the story is not predominantly about the protagonist, Lee Harker. This story is about the Devil, and it is about the summoning of Lucifer through a Sigil/Seal of Satan. It ultimately fails, but the scheme being uncovered throughout the story is the fulfillment of a number triangle which documents the offering of a child sacrifice on each date which intersects the lines of the triangle to form the Sigil; with 6 killings on each edge.
This triangle is the MacGuffin of the piece and with it front and centre in one’s mind, the rest of the plot falls into place. This is a tale of the worship of Lucifer and of a Satanist who has enabled the entry of Lucifer into innocent peoples lives with the aim of manifesting the always lurking Satan, and presumably starting a reign of evil. These innocent families are unconnected apart from their daughter’s birthdays, and the birthday dates are only significant because they form edges of the triangle in the Sigil of Satan.
The killings take many decades to complete and one of the intended victims, Lee, has escaped her sacrifice through the actions of her mother Ruth, but she is not free and is still under the control of Longlegs, who leads her down a path in aiding him to complete the triangle of sacrifices. Lee follows in a half-asleep state and has an unknown psychic advantage in all that goes on, due to the Devil informing her of things and making her appear to be “half psychic”.
Characters
Dale Ferdinand Kobble AKA Longlegs is the satanist who is manipulating the events of the movie. He is in league with the Devil and is acting as the Devil’s hands on earth. Throughout the story he thinks he has control and all is unfolding as he has planned, and this is true until the point that Ruth Harker destroys the ball inside the head of her daughter’s doll. After this the plan fails. Longlegs kills himself thinking that his work is complete, but it is not and Ruth puts into action the downfall of Satan’s resurrection on earth.
Longlegs’ principle act in the movie is to select the children in accordance with the triangle Sigil and produce the dolls that contain a piece of Satan in their heads; put there by Dale’s magic. It is with these dolls that Lucifer is able to influence the fathers of the families to commit murdercide and sacrifice their virgin children. While the story focusses on catching the “Serial Killer” Longlegs is not ever part of the killings. Instead the “7th She” (Ruth Harker) is far more involved in the killings.
Lee Harker may appear to be what this story is about, but this is not the case until the very end. This is the story of the triangle Sigil and Lee is a puppet of Satan throughout. She is just the unwitting tool to gain access to Ruby; the daughter of Agent Carter. Lee is lead by Longlegs down a path of his design, and this includes her joining the FBI at age 20. She is manipulated and fed information in her half asleep state from Satan that takes her into the lives of the Carter family. It is only when her mother shoots Lee’s doll that she awakens, and the control over her is broken. Here at the end of the movie we see her disrupt the Devil’s scheming and prevent the final child from being sacrificed. One could say that the movie is still about her, due to this ending, and that she has this kind of heroes journey going on. But while this may give viewers a satisfying normalcy in the shape of a movie plot, it is not really the point. The Devil and his control is the point of the movie and this is not conquered at the end of the film, rather he has been foiled and will have to try again another time.
Ruth Harker is Lee’s mother and is the real hero of the movie, she has made a deal with the devil and endures being part of his scheme throughout. She sacrifices everything for the life of her daughter, and ultimately wins. When Longlegs kills himself she is free of his control and thus destroys the doll of her daughter; freeing Lee from the evil influence. Her life however is forfeit and this is seen by the Devil’s control over her at the end, she ceases to be Lee’s mother and remains the as the single hand of Satan. Lucifer controls her through the Ruby doll to attack her daughter, and Lee kills her mother, perhaps freeing Ruth from Satan’s control and saving her soul.
Agent Carter is the human focus of this movie, it is his daughter that is the intended victim of the final killing that will complete the Seal and resurrect Lucifer. Lee’s involvement with him is not by chance and is a carefully constructed way to access the family. He brings Lee onto the case as a “green” agent and in doing so he brings about his own end. Carter is the stooge in this story and he doesn’t figure out what is going on throughout. He knows his daughter may be in danger due to her birthday being on the 14th (as shown in the scene where he is squirming in his seat, and also where he is convinced the Carrie Anne girl dying means that his daughter is safe) and yet does not see that his failure to act leads to his end, and the end of his wife. The movie shows us the Devil manipulating Lee on the case and her solving clues draws Carter into the frame, distracting him from the danger his daughter faces. Lee is a puppet of Longlegs and of Satan and only at the end does she take control to foil Lucifer.
References
Cypher
At this point it is almost trite to mention what the term “Longlegs” is used for in the movie, given that the advertising campaign gave away the alphabet and the codes that this cypher key was used for. It is only here as I have a niggling feeling that there is a part missing to the deciphering of the movies secret messages. Clearly the cypher key cannot be used for all of the messages, as presented in the movie, and as I eluded to above I believe that as we see with the birthday dates in the Sigil triangle scenes, we have a failure of the production department to correctly produce decodable messages.
I tried my best to decode these messages, but on the off chance there is a second key to the messages then there is perhaps more to find in the future.
Annabelle
In the story we see an Annabelle doll in Lee’s childhood bedroom, much popularised by the Conjuring Universe movies.
Although this is not the one from the movies, it is the similar to the real life doll that the Warren’s had in the glass case:
This indicates evil possession and influence of Lee like we see in the Conjuring movies.
Slide sequence
The slide sequence where Lee is asked to say a word in relation to a projected image is strikingly similar to the scene in Bladerunner 2049 where K has a similar sequence. This is like a much talked about MK Ultra programming/activation session, and kind of like the Captain America: Winter Soldier sequence also. Lee is clearly programmed by Lucifer and not acting on her own volition.
White Houses
The white barns/houses are suggestive of a few things, firstly purity as in the virgin daughters, secondly of a Christian faith, and thirdly of the concept of death. Together these things mark out a child for sacrifice in the movie.
Headless Ballerina
Ruby has a collection of ballerina awards in her bedroom, one of them that Lee picks up is headless and this is a foreshadowing of her realisation that she is a performer in a dance with the Devil, the headless nature referring to her half awake state due to the influence of her doll. It may also be a sign for her to realise that Ruby will become like her later.
The Gun
In the penultimate scene of the movie we see Lee try to destroy Ruby’s doll by shooting it. She has a 6 bullet revolver (possibly a Smith & Wesson Model 13) and has used 3 of the bullets already. Assuming the revolver was fully loaded when she entered the house something stops the gun from firing. The gun is not jammed as we hear the hammer hit the back of each bullet in the chamber, but the bullets do not fire. I can only assume that this is the Devil preventing the gun form firing in a joke he is playing on her, and you can imagine that Lucifer is pissing himself laughing at this final indignity for Lee. She has won but cannot finish the job, it’s like a metaphor for evil in the world, Lee will take Ruby away and escape the house, and the doll will likely end up in an FBI evidence lockup and may even be opened, but the message here is that evil cannot be destroyed completely, it will always linger on and return later.
The Harker Name
The name Harker is used with intent here I would guess, as it relates to Mina Harker from the Dracula story who was under his spell and influence, in the same way that Lee is under the spell of Satan, and being used by him in a similar manner.
Personal Meaning
So as a Harker myself this movie sucked me in as you might imagine, but I hadn’t expected it to be a mirror of my own experience with evil. I was captivated by Lee’s escape from Lucifer’s hold and she survived it as I did. This movie was a puzzle to be solved and as we see Lee solving the crimes through solving puzzles, I was trying to solve the meaning of the movie through the puzzles presented to me. I love the religious theme to the movie and was particularly drawn to the carol eluded to by Longlegs. “Harker the Herald Angels Sing” he says and caused me to look up the lyrics to the song, and in my somewhat predictable style I got a large Kundalini surge with the reading of:
Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth
Hark! The herald angels sing
“Glory to the newborn King!”
My mission here 🙂