The Monkey(2025)(Review) - Gruesome Gazette

Last summer, Osgood Perkins established himself as a household name by dropping the largely hyped ‘Longlegs’. He had successful films before this, such as ‘The Blackcoat’s Daughter’ and ‘I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives in The House’, but ‘Longlegs’ was what really brought him more into the mainstream. So when it was quickly announced that he already had a follow-up film on the way, hype continued to buzz. Especially considering that ‘The Monkey’ is based off an older Stephen King short story and produced by James Wan. I finally got a chance to catch up with it and check it out.

Hal & Bill are twin brothers who are raised by a single mother when their father disappears one random day. Their lives are tumultuous, with the brothers constantly fighting, and Hal is bullied at school almost daily. Then one day, while rifling through their father’s old things in his closet, they come across a toy monkey that has a wind-up key and bangs on a drum. (Fun fact: the monkey is supposed to clang cymbals together, but Disney trademarked that specific design when they made one of the newer ‘Toy Story’ entries). But they realize that everytime the monkey plays his drum, someone randomly dies. Who it chooses and how they die are completely at random, but it triggers a series of events that cannot be undone and hit close to home. The only thing that is true is based off a quote the mother does say near the beginning, “people die, and that’s just fucked up.”

The film is broken into two parts with a cold-open. The cold open establishes the rules of the titular monkey, and the two parts the film splits is when the brothers are children in school, then 25 years later when they are estranged. After all that time, the monkey resurfaces into their lives and forces them to come together to settle things once and for all.

As a whole, this film is a fun and campy experience. The deaths are bizarre and the energy is manic. However, it does suffer from a very ingenuine story that really needed a second revision. We ultimately come to a conclusion, but there’s really nothing at stake, and its very nonsensical in how things develop. Even the estranged brothers finally coming to terms is essentially settled as “I hate you because of this.” “Yeah dude, me too.” “Oh.” – then all is forgiven.

It also suffers from an abundance of CGI-gore – which really makes this film just feel like a cheap version of the worst ‘Final Destination’ film. I would suggest that it’s important to approach this film as a “comedy with some horror elements” rather than a “horror comedy”, because there is practically no horror anywhere within this film minus one or two hard-hitting segments.

Essentially, it’s worth an experience, because it’s certainly not a bad time by any means, but it easily feels like a film he made in-between films; which it actually is. He shot this inbetween ‘Longlegs’ and another film that was previewed in theaters after the credits of ‘The Monkey’ played. It’s no ‘Longlegs’ for sure.. but you can definitely do worse.

3/5
“The Monkey” is currently available to stream/purchase on VOD services.

‘Til Next Time,
Mike Cleopatra