The Monkey (2025) Review: A Refreshing, Though Uneven Change of Pace for Osgood Perkins in a Gleefully Violent Horror Comedy

So, how do you follow up Longlegs, the much talked-about occult thriller that became Neon’s highest-grossing movie ever made so far? For Osgood Perkins, he looks like he has another hit in the making but get this — a pitch-black horror comedy titled The Monkey, which is loosely based on Stephen King’s 1980 short story of the same name that was later included in the author’s 1985 short story collection in Skeleton Crew.

Seeing Perkins venturing into the horror-comedy territory seems like an odd but fascinating change of pace, especially given his past four directorial efforts — The Blackcoat’s Daughter, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, Gretel & Hansel and Longlegs — were largely brooding and atmospheric horror movies.

This brings me to the all-important question: How absurd, silly or dark is his comedy approach going to be? As batsh*t crazy as Sam Raimi’s earlier gonzo works? Or perhaps something satirically macabre as the ones seen in the late Wes Craven (the Scream quadrilogy) and the directing duo Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (Ready or Not)? Or maybe a bit of everything?

Whatever it is, Perkins knows what he’s doing here as he gives us an attention-grabbing opening scene: A nervous airline pilot played by Adam Scott shows up in a pawn shop with the titular toy monkey and well, things get bloody. Not only it is gory but also has that sense of dark humour splattering all over the place, showcasing Perkins’s flair for combining grisly horror and black comedy to a successful result.

Perkins, who also adapted the screenplay, continues to show promises with the 1990s-set story focusing on the twin boys Hal and Bill (both played by Christian Convery). They hate each other, particularly Bill who often bullies him all the time. They live with their widowed mother (Tatiana Maslany) and one day, the twins discover their father’s belongings, one of which is a box that stores a toy monkey.

When one of them takes the monkey and winds up the key at the back, it starts moving, beginning with one of its raising hands twirling the drumstick before it keeps pounding on the drum while flashing a grin. From here, it’s like watching Final Destination-like moments as death happens to plenty of unfortunate, innocent victims.

Perkins is no doubt having a field day ramping up the gore and violence (the decapitation is one of them) while meshing them with elements of black comedy. At times, he even accelerates these combined horror-comedy tropes to a gleefully cartoonish level, evidently in an extended darkly humorous moment of a woman’s head caught on fire and this isn’t the worst part that happens to her later in the movie.

Theo James, who plays dual performances as the adult Hal and Bill, is subsequently introduced, even though the movie’s 25-year-later storyline revolved around mostly Hal’s mundane life. He may have been married but he is seen as a deadbeat dad, who barely spends his time with his teenage son Petey (Colin O’Brien). He suffers from occasional nightmares from the past whenever he tries to get some sleep. For some reason, the toy monkey that he and Bill buried somewhere deep returns to haunt him all over again.

The story forgoes the origin of the mysterious toy monkey in favour of metaphorical themes of death, inevitability and cruel fate. At one point, Tatiana Maslany’s maternal character mentioned to her twin children: “Everybody dies. Some of us peacefully and in our sleep, and some of us… horribly. And that’s life.”

Too bad the underlying themes ultimately get lost in Perkins’s copious display of extreme gore and violence, especially in the movie’s second half which grows increasingly erratic. I was hoping the movie will pick up some slack but the bumpy storytelling can’t seem to find its proper footing and by the time the third act arrives, it all leads to a whimper that doesn’t justify the promising setup in the first place.

Save for Adam Scott’s memorable cameo appearance and Tatiana Maslany’s supporting performance playing the widowed mother while Christian Convery made quite an impression as the twin children with distinct personalities, the same cannot be said for Theo James, whose attempted deadpan performance mostly misses the mark.

The biggest problem with James’s character as the adult Hal lies in the movie’s insufficient emotional and dramatic heft seen in his estranged father-son relationship with O’Brien’s Petey. They may have been in grave danger as more body counts piling up but beyond its impressive technical showcase and genre know-how on the horror-comedy elements, I find it hard to care whether these two can make it at the end of the movie. It’s a pity because I really wanted to like this movie, especially given the dream team of Osgood Perkins, producer James Wan and source material based on Stephen King’s short story.