THE MONKEY (2025)

Despite being permanently associated with Legally Blonde (2001), writer-director Osgood Perkins has earned a reputation as contemporary horror royalty. As the son of Anthony Perkins, who famously portrayed Norman Bates in Psycho (1960), he’s fully embraced his macabre lineage, crafting some of the most atmospheric and brooding horrors of the past decade. Having cultivated a distinct visual aesthetic and an uncanny ability to conjure an oppressive sense of dread, Perkins has established himself as a genuine talent for unsettling his audiences in the most exquisite ways. His previous efforts, such as the supernatural Gothic film I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House (2016) and the twisted fairytale Gretel & Hansel (2020), earned him a limited but loyal fanbase.

However, it wasn’t until the release of the psychological thriller Longlegs (2024) that Perkins was cemented as one of the pre-eminent horror auteurs of his generation. His latest endeavour, about an indestructible murderous tchotchke, continues his exploration of pervasive unease and existential terror but revels in its morbidly comedic depiction of death. Adapted from Stephen King’s 1980 short story, originally published in the popular adult publication Gallery before being revised for his 1985 omnibus Skeleton Crew, The Monkey is a delicious blend of nihilistic black comedy and relentlessly gruesome horror.   

Twin brothers, Bill and Hal (Christian Convery), have spent a great deal of their childhood opposed. Bill’s relentless cruelty toward his younger, timid sibling eventually breeds an intense animosity between the two. The pair have lived with their upbeat single mother Lois (Tatiana Maslany) since their estranged father mysteriously disappeared several years prior. When they unearth an ominous mechanical monkey in the family attic, they soon realise it possesses an unquenchable thirst for bloodshed. Winding up its turnkey kickstarts a series of elaborately gruesome fatalities. After a particularly awful tragedy in their lives, the boys attempt to destroy the plaything before relocating to Maine to live with their Aunt Ida (Sarah Levy) and Uncle Chip (Osgood Perkins).

25 years after seemingly destroying the cursed monkey by tossing it into a deep well, Hal (Theo James) is happily estranged from Bill and keeps everyone else at a significant distance. That includes his teenage son Petey (Colin O’Brien), who lives with his mother (Laura Mennell) and her obnoxious husband (Elijah Wood). However, Hal is drawn back to his childhood nightmare after learning of his aunt’s gruesome and inexplicable death. Fearing that the malevolent monkey will claim his son, Hal returns to his old hometown to confront both his fractured past and his unhinged brother, Bill. Determined to end the cycle of bloodshed, the siblings must unravel the dark origins of the monkey while attempting to repair their fractured relationship.   

While the titular tchotchke undeniably commands the spotlight, it’s Theo James (Dual) who provides the necessary human core by delivering two wonderfully diverse performances as twin brothers Hal and Bill. The actor demonstrates an impressive range by seamlessly inhabiting two distinctly different personalities caught in an outlandish cycle of pandemonium. Hal is a socially awkward introvert who navigates every interaction suffocated by his anxieties, while Bill is an agent of chaos whose sadistic wit recalls the actor’s turn as the insufferable American tourist in The White Lotus. He delights in making provocative comments and wants to watch the world burn. It’s a complex performance and a less experienced talent might have succumbed to broad caricature, overindulging in theatrical excess to convey the encroaching malevolence. Yet, James ensures that his performances remain grounded despite the narrative descending into the surreal and heightened world of horror. With remarkable restraint, he lends a chilling authenticity to the increasingly nightmarish atmosphere.   

The Monkey bears the unmistakable cinematic idiosyncrasies of writer-director Osgood Perkins that mirror the encroaching dread of his previous endeavours. Cinematographer Andrés Arochi (Longlegs) deliberately employs wide lenses and almost oppressive lighting to cultivate a deeply unsettling paranoia. Whereas production design luxuriates in the eerie 1990s aesthetic, replete with era-appropriate fashion and Goosebumps posters.

However, audiences anticipating the depressingly bleak horror steeped in the suffocating solemn atmosphere that defined Longlegs may find themselves somewhat surprised. The Monkey serves as an unexpected and welcome tonal palate cleanser that sees Perkins venturing into an entirely new cinematic wheelhouse without any level of arthouse solemnity. His signature brand of somnambulistic unease gives way to a fiendishly playful misanthropic humour that’s mined for absurdist laughs. If the use of Shirley and Lee’s “Let the Good Times Roll” in the promotional material doesn’t reveal the filmmaker’s farcical intentions, then the prologue certainly establishes the nihilistic tone. From the outset, a bloodied airline pilot (Adam Scott) manically stumbles into a pawn shop filled with treacherous-looking oddities, desperately attempting to offload a vintage mechanical monkey. As the shopkeeper (Shafin Karim) refuses the eponymous curio, it reveals a homicidal grin and breaks into its metronomic solo before unleashing an explosion of bloodshed.   

There’s a devilish sense of playfulness coursing through the riotous 90-minute runtime as Perkins gleefully orchestrates a symphony of carnage with the meticulousness of a Rube Goldberg machine. While each freak accident may lack the agonising suspense of Final Destination (2000), the instantaneous moments of spectacular bloodshed teeter between the grotesque and the absurd much like the delirious lunacy of Evil Dead II (1987). One unforgettable demise involves an electrified swimming pool transforming its unfortunate victim into a grotesque explosion of airborne limbs. Whereas another sees a character cartoonishly hurtling through a house with their head ablaze, only to suffer a fate even more perversely cruel than immolation. Perkins escalates this carnivalesque insanity further by casting himself as Hal’s promiscuous uncle, Chip. His fate is revealed by some genius editing from Graham Fortin (Longlegs) and Greg Ng (Afflicted) alongside the omnipotent narration comparing his mangled remains to the filling in a cherry pie. After his more sombre works, it’s refreshing to see Perkins fully embrace the genre’s gory excesses with the precision of a master showman.   

Throughout Stephen King’s career, countless adaptations of his work have attempted to capture his signature blend of horror, humanity, and dark humour. While emotionally resonant dramas including Stand by Me (1986), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), and The Green Mile (1999) have showcased the depth of his storytelling beyond the macabre, it’s his tales of terror that have left an indelible mark on both literature and cinema. Carrie (1976), The Shining (1980), and Misery (1990) all remain enduring classics not because of their frights but because of their psychological complexity and unnerving atmosphere. Though Perkins has taken creative liberties with the source material by replacing the Satanic simian’s clashing cymbals with a snare drum, The Monkey remains faithful to the essence of King’s unsettling vision. It captures the macabre playfulness and irreverent energy that have long drawn audiences to the author’s work, earning its place alongside Creepshow (1982) and Maximum Overdrive (1986).   

What is otherwise a sensationalist bloodbath that indulges in gratuitous violence with its tongue firmly placed within its cheek, beneath the carnage lies a melancholic undercurrent about the inescapable pain and spontaneity of death. Perkins has previously acknowledged that Longlegs was influenced by his mother’s attempts to shield him from his father’s closeted sexuality. It’s not difficult to interpret The Monkey through a similarly introspective lens. Having endured profound personal loss that was as equally absurd as it was tragic, he’s intimately familiar with the cruel unpredictability of fate and the universal feeling of grief. His father tragically passed away due to complications with AIDS in 1992 and his mother, Berry Berenson, was a passenger on board Flight 11 during the September 11th terrorist attacks.

The extreme anguish of loss and the harsh unpredictability of mortality inform The Monkey to explore humanity’s existential need to impose meaning on suffering and the cruel indifference of the universe as an agent of demise. Although Perkins frames death as a hyperbolically ironic punchline, the repeated aphorism “Everybody dies, and that’s life” perfectly encapsulates the inevitable finality we must grasp. It’s an inescapable fate we’ll eventually encounter and something everyone we cherish will also experience. By reminding the audience that we all live obliviously with a noose around our neck, Perkins suggests that perhaps our only solace lies in appreciating the moments before the hangman inevitably tightens the rope.   

Unfortunately, the story that unfolds between the brilliantly conceived death sequences and its philosophical rumination on mortality struggles to maintain a coherent tone. When the malevolent monkey’s rhythmic beat subsides, the narrative teeters uncertainly, attempting to reconcile its competing identities as a deeply reflective family drama and a nightmarish black comedy. The explosive moments of bloodshed function as deliberate tonal shifts and provide moments of levity from Hal’s parental anxieties and struggles with generational trauma.

However, there are several instances in which Perkins oscillates between macabre humour and a restrained sardonic tone that may disorientate some viewers. A particular sequence featuring Elijah Wood (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring) as the insufferably smooth parenting guru Ted Hammerman lands in an awkward tonal purgatory. His discussion with Hal about adopting Petey feels too passively serious to be truly satirical, yet too absurd to be genuinely unsettling. Much like Longlegs, which cultivated a passionate following while simultaneously alienating those expecting a conventional horror, The Monkey suffers from a tonal inconsistency that may divide audiences. Viewers anticipating a straightforward exercise in terror may find themselves frustrated by Perkins’ shifting sensibilities.

Despite its tonal inconsistencies and occasional narrative missteps, The Monkey stands as one of the more compelling adaptations of Stephen King’s work. It signals an exciting evolution for Osgood Perkins as he transitions from his idiosyncratic brand of depressingly bleak horror, steeped in somnambulistic dread, in favour of a deliriously vicious black comedy saturated with unrelenting nihilism. It might be difficult to find humour in a narrative preoccupied with the unpredictability of death, but his gleefully sadistic approach practically demands a visceral response from the audience. The spectacularly deranged death sequences that veer between the absurd and horrifying will provoke laughter, gasps, and screams in equal measure. The Monkey reconfirms Perkins’ status as one of horror’s most fearlessly inventive filmmakers, gleefully dismantling convention with his signature brand of imaginative lunacy.

USA • UK | 2025 | 98 MINUTES | 2:35:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH

Cast & Crew

director: Osgood Perkins.
writer: Osgood Perkins (based on the Stephen King short story from his omnibus ‘Skeleton Crew‘)
starring: Theo James, Tatiana Maslany, Colin O’Brien, Rohan Campbell, Christian Convery, Elijah Wood & Adam Scott.