Death is a fact of life, albeit one that most people are in denial about until it’s too late. While the natural aging process helps mentally prepare folks for entering the great beyond, the prospect of suffering an untimely death is so abhorrent that it’s essentially the basis for the entire horror genre. The Monkey — a new horror-comedy from writer-director Osgood Perkins (Longlegs, Gretel & Hansel), based on the Stephen King short story of the same name — tackles this idea head-on, presenting its characters with a mysterious wind-up monkey that somehow has the power to cause death and tragedy.
If you’re a fan of Oz Perkins’ previous horror movies, you might expect a bleak and depressing picture centered around poor souls trying to deal with death as it slowly encroaches upon them. Perhaps the biggest surprise of The Monkey is that it sees Perkins operating in a totally new and unique mode within his signature filmmaking style. The Monkey is eerie and disturbing at times, sure, but more often than not, it is fiendishly clever, deliciously mean-spirited, and wickedly funny, with pitch-black humor dialed all the way up.
Oz Perkins takes considerable creative liberties in adapting Stephen King’s 1980 short story. However, all of these changes remain true to the spirit of King’s work. The Monkey follows twin brothers Hal and Bill (played by actor Christian Convery as teenagers and Theo James as adults), who find a large toy monkey (with a drum instead of the more traditional cymbals seen in King’s version) hidden away in their late father’s closet. Intrigued by the inscription on the box, which simply reads “Like Life,” they turn the monkey’s key on its back, and seemingly nothing happens. But, soon enough, people around them begin to die in sudden, horrific accidents.
After one twin realizes that the monkey’s power cannot be directed at anyone in particular, the boys decide to dump the cursed object at the bottom of a deep well. Twenty-five years later, however, the monkey reemerges, causing Hal, who’s tried to leave his past behind him, to try and stop the evil toy for good. Along for the ride is his estranged teenage son Petey (Colin O’Brien), whom Hal is trying to protect from the cursed toy’s influence by sadly distancing himself further and further away from.
Hal is only using the monkey as an excuse, though, because deep down, he knows that no one is truly safe from its grasp — save, perhaps, whoever turns its key last. The Monkey is one of the most intriguing horror films in recent memory, mainly because it features no firm set of rules or transgressions that explain when, how, or who dies. While the movie’s tone is very close to the works of filmmakers Glen Morgan and James Wong (specifically the Final Destination franchise), The Monkey’s version of death is as inexplicable as it is gruesome. Osgood Perkins crafts some of the bloodiest, nastiest kills of the year, and it’s only February!
The kills in The Monkey are less Rube Goldbergian and more slapstick (or perhaps it should be called splatstick), and the tone they create for the movie may be its most Stephen King-esque element. In the spirit of something like Creepshow or Maximum Overdrive, The Monkey takes King’s mean streak and runs with it. What’s most impressive is how Osgood Perkins morphs his uncanny sense of pace into full-on comedy. His typical dread somnambulism is all but gone, replaced instead with sharp and incisive comedic timing, including one hard cut that will leave you howling with sick glee.
Whereas Oz Perkins’ last film, Longlegs, featured a tailor-made role for star Nicolas Cage, The Monkey is more of an ensemble piece (save for a pair of brief, fun cameos that won’t be spoiled here). The entire cast is uniformly solid, though there are a couple of standouts in particular. Tatiana Maslany (She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, Orphan Black) makes Lois, the mother of the twins, a wonderfully no-nonsense “boy mom” whose philosophy on life is both subversively dark and realistic.
The other notable player is Theo James (Netflix’s The Gentlemen, HBO’s The White Lotus). With his dual role, James could have taken on the task by going super broad and essaying a long list of differences between Hal and Bill. Yet, what he does is much subtler and more interesting, distinguishing the twins without resorting to accents, tics, or anything of the kind. In a way, his charming and sly, deadpan delivery is the complete opposite of what’s seen in Longlegs. Where Nicolas Cage gave a theatrical performance in order to complement the idea of his evil infecting the world around him, Theo James keeps the increasingly surreal and heightened world of The Monkey grounded in some form of reality.
The Monkey best resembles an average episode of Tales From the Crypt, but that’s not to say that it’s just a gorefest lark. Far from it, as there’s an acid bitterness to Oz Perkins’ script, and with good reason. Perkins has stated that part of his inspiration for The Monkey comes from his past suffering from several personal losses whose circumstances were as absurd as they were tragic. It’s this aspect of grief — the unfair feeling that comes with asking “Why me?” in extreme anguish — that The Monkey explores in an unsubtle yet distinct manner. Through all the bloody chaos and dark humor, Perkins captures how life and death can be almost hyperbolically (and unfairly) cruel.
Who knows how many recent events were on Osgood Perkins’ mind when he made these last two features, but it’s quite ironic how much Longlegs and The Monkey can be applied to the hellish world we are all currently living in. Where Longlegs observed how easily we so-called “good” people can apathetically harbor pure evil in our proverbial basements, The Monkey’s perspective of trying to find empathy and ways to survive through horrific circumstances beyond our control feels especially relevant. The fact that the monkey’s key will keep turning can’t be changed; all we can do is laugh or cry about it, despair or dance. As The Monkey suggests, it’s sometimes just that simple.
The Monkey hits theaters on February 21!
Release Date: February 21, 2025.
Directed by Osgood Perkins.
Screenplay by Osgood Perkins.
Based on The Monkey by Stephen King.
Produced by James Wan, Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, Dave Caplan, Michael Clear, & Chris Ferguson.
Executive Producers: Fred Berger, Liz Destro, John Friedberg, David Gendron, Ali Jazayeri, Peter Luo, John Rickard, Natalia Safran, Jesse Savath, Judson Scott, & Nancy Xu.
Main Cast: Theo James, Christian Convery, Tatiana Maslany, Elijah Wood, Colin O’Brien, Rohan Campbell, Sarah Levy, & Nicco Del Rio.
Cinematographer: Nico Aguilar.
Composer: Edo Van Breemen.
Production Companies: Atomic Monster, C2 Motion Picture Group, Range Media Partners, Oddfellows Entertainment, Black Bear Pictures, & Starlight Culture Entertainment Group.
Distributor: Neon.
Runtime: 98 minutes.
Rated R.
