The Monkey Review
The Monkey (2025) Film Review, a movie directed by Osgood Perkins, written by Osgood Perkins and starring Theo James, Tatiana Maslany, Christian Convery, Rohan Campbell, Colin O’Brien, Elijah Wood, Sarah Levy, Osgood Perkins, Tess Degenstein, Danica Dreyer, Kingston Chan, Zia Newton, Shafin Karim, Lumen Beltran, Laura Mennell and Janet Kidder.
Comedy is hard. At the best of times, the movie becomes something niche that might develop into a cult classic, and at the worst of times it ends up being a massive bomb that is forgotten within a year. When mixed with a genre as complex and prone to trends as horror, well, the stakes are a lot higher, and the configuration becomes much, much more difficult to get just right. Case in point, of course, auteur Osgood Perkins’ latest film, The Monkey, based on a Stephen King short story, which was published in the 1985 collection, Skeleton Crew. This movie is dancing between two very, very different extremes, and only one of them is really successful in its attempt.
After a delightfully lurid opening, in which Adam Scott’s Petey Shelburn attempts to return a hideous monkey toy to a pawn shop, the tone of the movie is apparently set; every death scene that follows is almost as fiendishly clever and brilliantly shocking as the one in that opening, though the carnage surrounding the monkey’s mischief isn’t always as gratuitous. This movie features slapstick and violence that would make Sam Raimi or the great Charlie Chaplin do a spit-take, and certain audiences will absolutely love this movie for it. As someone who considers Evil Dead II one of the greatest comedies of all time, it’s clear where my sympathies lie.
Not as successful are the dramatic scenes, which is surprising, considering this is the same director as last years thriller, Longlegs, as well as atmospheric and phenomenally challenging movies like Gretal and Hansel and The Blackcoat’s Daughter. Our protagonist, Hal Shelburn (Theo James pulling double duty as his sinister twin brother, Bill, as well), comes off as Mr. Perkins working through his own paternal trauma. His father, Psycho star Anthony Perkins, was famously a closeted gay man who nonetheless stayed with his wife until the day he died. Hal’s adult drama involves his estrangement from his son, Petey, whom he wishes to spare from the evil of the monkey by staying away. Every scene between Petey and Hal feels like it goes on too long, and things get worse when we get into the last stretch of the movie, where Hal’s twin brother makes his return, in a departure from the short story, becoming a cliche Stephen King villain, with the ending ultimately being as disappointing as many King adaptations tend to be.
The best part of the movie, unsurprisingly, is the titular monkey himself. The prop is wonderfully, deliriously evil, with his monstrous, toothy grin, and his twirling, whirring drumsticks, and his hellish calliope music that plays every time his key is turned. The Monkey is living its absolute best life when it is embodying the chaotic soul of the toy monkey. The blood spatter and violence is funnier and better conceived than most straightforward comedies, but the movie sputters where it really counts, which is a shame; that being said, while this reviewer gave The Monkey a middling score, if you’re a connoisseur of delightful schlock like The Toxic Avenger or Don Dohler’s oeuvre, then Osgood Perkins’ The Monkey was made for you. Come for the sneering monkey doll, stay for Death on his pale horse at the end.
Rating: 6/10
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