On February 20, cinemas began screening the comedy horror film «The Monkey», which is based on the 1980 short story by Stephen King. Before the premiere, everything pointed to this being a decent movie: Osgood Perkins, last year’s «Longlegs» which made a lot of noise, and English-language reviewers were generous in complimentary epithets. But whether «The Monkey» is really such a great movie — read the review below.
Pluses:
Someone will definitely like the on-screen madness, and there's nothing wrong with that; to be fair, a few moments can really put a smile on your face;
Minuses:
A faded story about two brothers and the son of one of them clashes with a meaningless bloody madness; the film is not as funny or as well entertaining as its author thinks it is;
«The Monkey»
Genre comedy horror movie
Director Osgood Perkins
Starring Theo James, Christian Convery, Tatiana Maslany, Elijah Wood, Roan Campbell, Adam Scott, Sarah Levy, Laura Mannell, Osgood Perkins
Premiere movie theaters
Year of release 2025
Website IMDb
25 years ago, very young twins Hal and Bill Shelburne found an old toy monkey with a wind-up key on its back, which could be activated by playing a drum, among their missing father’s belongings. But then the boys realize that the simple melody produced by the ominously smiling toy leads to the death of someone around them. After their mother dies from the infernal game, Hal and Bill go to live in Maine with their Aunt Ida and Uncle Chip.
Since the monkey cannot be destroyed, as Hal has seen for himself, the boys try to get rid of the cursed toy, so they pack it in a box and throw it into a deep well. It seemed that the uncontrollable deaths would finally end, but today, a quarter of a century after those events, the monkey returns to the brothers’ lives. And with it, the tragic accidents that happen to everyone it meets.
Apparently, director and screenwriter Osgoode Perkins concluded that today you can’t scare anyone with a toy monkey anymore, so he got rid of the deadly seriousness of Stephen King’s original story and filled the film with a frivolous bloody meat grinder to the amusement of an undemanding audience. But Mr. Perkins clearly overestimated his abilities and, on the back of the success of his previous work, probably decided that he was much more witty than he actually is.
While the monkey, who bares his teeth ominously at the audience, plays his drum, Oz Perkins plays on the audience’s nerves with all his might.
His brainchild is not so much eerily funny as cynically empty, misanthropic, deliberately deprived of any chance of viewer empathy and attachment to what is happening on the screen. Someone on the screen was literally torn into small pieces — let’s laugh with all our might, it’s so much fun! Someone turned into a bloody mess, neatly packed in a sleeping bag — another good reason to laugh, why not.
Only where there is room for simple fun, even if it is extremely bloody, does a feeling of embarrassment arise for some reason. And where Perkins tries to dabble in the «inevitable but spectacular death» genre, someone tell the man that this topic was much more inventively addressed in «Final Destination», especially in the early films of the franchise. By the way, there is good news for all the fans of this horror series from the 2000s: the sixth installment with the subtitle «Bloodlines» is scheduled for release in May.
Obviously, some people will find the pseudo-hilarious bloody mess on the screen amusing, something to be taken as lightly as possible. This is also facilitated by the stupid, horrifyingly caricatured deaths in the spirit of the hyperbolic mutilations from «Home Alone». However, for some reason, these «fun» are not perceived in the way the screenwriter intended. Therefore, it is not difficult to conclude that this kind of entertainment — is very much for amateurs.
From the point of view of content, there is not much to say; there is no emphasis on it at all, and this is a completely deliberate move. The story has strayed far from the original source, and all the relationships of the local characters, without exception, exist purely for the sake of form. So there’s not much to play for Theo James and others in this primitive drama, which, frankly, prevents the onscreen madness from unfolding to its fullest.
«The Monkey» is only worth recommending to fans of bloody thrash saturated with straightforward black humor, reveling in its own permissiveness and spitting on morality and rules of decency from a high mountain.
After all, all you can count on here is meaningless caricatured bloodshed and a music-loving rabid monkey in the spotlight who behaves so badly that it might seem like it’s a biopic about Robbie Williams on hard drugs. But no, here we have another King movie, and after last year’s «Salem’s Lot» is still infinitely unimaginative. So how do we respond to the — laugh, shout, or maybe cry — decide at your discretion what is closer to you personally. Where is my handkerchief?
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