‘Everybody dies. Some of us peacefully and in our sleep, and some of us… horribly. And that’s life…’
Director Osgood Perkins (son of Anthony Perkins AKA Norman Bates from Psycho) is having a moment right now. 2024’s Longlegs was a smash success, and that was the first of three films that Perkins is currently slated to release with Neon Productions along with this one and Keeper which is due in October of 2025. If the presence of Perkins isn’t enough horror royalty for you, The Monkey is based on a short story from horror icon Stephen King and James Wan – creator of The Conjuring Universe – serves as producer. So, does The Monkey end up being something that lives up to the sum of its parts? The jury’s out on that one…
Identical twins Hal and Bill Sherburn (Christian Convery as a child and Theo James as an adult) fall under a terrible curse after they find an old wind-up monkey toy amongst the possessions of their absent father (played in flashback by Adam Scott). After a series of terrible accidents, the boys come to understand that each death coincides with the pounding of the monkey’s drum. Perkins himself appears as the boys’ uncle as well as Tatiana Maslany who plays their beloved mother and Colin O’Brien also stars as Hal’s despairing son Petey.
Now, my issue with this film is tone. And that’s not to say that it’s tonally uneven, in fact, Perkins does a great job of combining gallows humour, extreme gore and a beating heart underneath it all. I just prefer my horror movies to be something darker. Something truly unsettling. The Monkey has some creepy moments, and the titular monkey itself is beautifully rendered (despite being robbed of its trademark cymbals due to a copyright claim from Disney about a similar character in Toy Story 3). I also admire Perkins’ refusal to hint at any kind of wider cinematic King universe (other than a clumsy reference to Misery). We’ve all seen enough references to Cujo, Christine and the number 19 to last a lifetime.
Visually, The Monkey is a triumph. Perkins unsurprisingly knows how to make the insidious glow of a motel sign really pop. I’m not so enamoured with Perkins’ abilities as a writer, however. As with Longlegs, the third act doesn’t hold together here and his decision to make every character a surreal caricature becomes jarring by the end.
As with all of Perkin’s films to date, mileage will vary on this one depending on how much his audience is willing to get on board with his signature style. It’s comedy at its most black but it’s comedy nevertheless. While Longlegs was very much a horror film with elements of humour, The Monkey too often feels like a comedy masquerading as a horror film – a mixed bag.
