The pilot Petey Shelburn enters an antique shop in the hopes of getting rid of a drum-playing toy monkey, saying he wants it to be someone else’s problem. Suddenly, the toy monkey starts playing its drums, which causes a chain reaction where the shop owner gets killed. Petey on the other hand disappears, never to be heard from again. This leaves his wife, Lois, to raise their two children Hal and Bill alone. Several years later, in 1999, the two boys discover the toy monkey while going through their father’s belongings. Curious, they wind its key, and the first victim is their babysitter Annie. They realize that the toy monkey caused it for some reason, and when Hal gets tired of Bill’s constant bullying he decides to wind up the toy once again in the hopes it will kill his brother. Instead, their mother suffers a sudden aneurysm and dies as soon as Bill comes home. Obviously, the monkey doesn’t take orders. Hal chops the toy in pieces, and disposes of it before they move to their aunt Ida and uncle Chip. There, the monkey reappears and another death ensues. The brothers then decide to try a final attempt of getting rid of it by sealing it inside a box and throwing it into a well. And, well…according to the law of horror stories, nothing that is cast into a well will remain hidden forever. Twenty-five years later, Hal is estranged from his brother and barely has any contact with his son Petey. Then, Bill suddenly calls because he thinks the monkey is back.
The Monkey is a comedy horror movie written and directed by Osgood Perkins, and is loosely based on a short story from 1980 by Stephen King. Originally, Frank Darabont (director of The Mist from 2007) held the film rights to this story, but the project never materialized.
We’ve come to know Osgood Perkins as the master of atmospheric slow-burn horror movies (with his debut The Blackcoat’s Daughter and last year’s hit Longlegs), and this time he wanted to try something completely different. Perkins wanted to give the film comedic elements because he thought it was more fitting for a film about a killer toy:
“I took liberties like a motherfucker. They [Atomic Monster] had a very serious script. Very serious. I felt it was too serious, and I told them: ‘This doesn’t work for me. The thing with this toy monkey is that the people around it all die in insane ways. So, I thought: Well, I’m an expert on that.’ Both my parents died in insane, headline-making ways. I spent a lot of my life recovering from tragedy, feeling quite bad. It all seemed inherently unfair. You personalize the grief: ‘Why is this happening to me?’ But I’m older now and you realize this shit happens to everyone. Everyone dies. Sometimes in their sleep, sometimes in truly insane ways, like I experienced. But everyone dies. And I thought maybe the best way to approach that insane notion is with a smile.”
While the film does have a lot of the moody visuals which is identifiable in Perkins’s earlier works, the suspense is unfortunately lacking so it all feels a little misplaced. There isn’t really any actual tension here, and the kills are mostly setup as pure jokes. Nothing wrong with that, but it gets a bit repetitive, and the comedy parts fall a little flat for me and gives a feeling of trying a little too hard which just makes it stumble. I’ll admit I did like the design of the monkey toy itself, it’s similar enough to the original toy with cymbals (the Jolly Chimp from the 1930s) while giving it a slightly ominous flair without going over the top (like with the Annabelle doll). I can easily imagine that it would have worked pretty well in a more serious movie, too. In many ways, I think this movie is a little reminiscent of movies like Wish Upon, with a dose of Final Destination. It’s kind of silly, kind of gory, and never tries to fool you into taking any of it seriously. The premise itself is of course totally bananas: a toy monkey causing someone to die every time it’s playing the drums. It was also fun to see some well-known faces throughout the movie. Also fun to see Perkins himself playing a minor role here, as the eccentric uncle Chip.
Granted, The Monkey isn’t any masterpiece, but there’s no doubt that it’s still granted a success. The film has already grossed $20 million against a budget of $10-11 million. Not much of a surprise when keeping the success of Longlegs from last year in mind (although these two films can barely be compared), and the trailer for The Monkey got millions of views.
My verdict? The Monkey is a movie where the kills are the most entertaining and fun part, and the movie is best enjoyed when turning off your brain completely and not expecting anything similar to what Perkins has made earlier. I’m fine with him wanting to do some monkeying around for a change, but I also personally hope that we’ll see more of his slow-burn atmospheric horror movies in the future.
Wreiter and director: Oz Perkins
Country & year: USA/UK/Canada, 2025
Actors: Theo James, Tatiana Maslany, Christian Convery, Colin O’Brien, Elijah Wood, Rohan Campbell, Sarah Levy, Osgood Perkins, Tess Degenstein, Danica Dreyer, Beatrix Perkins, Kingston Chan
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27714946/
