THE MONKEY (2025)

I’m not heartless. I’m always willing to give someone a second chance, and after the disappointing Longlegs, I was still willing to give writer/ director Osgood Perkins a go, maybe due to my love of Anthony Perkins, or maybe because I did enjoy the first two acts of Longlegs enough to take a chance.

We are in the middle of a horror renaissance at the moment with so much genre stuff coming out that I also think I should support it whenever I can, so we don’t just get more and more unnecessary sequels, remakes of animated classics, and whatever else leaks out of the Mouse of House’s gaping anus.

The Monkey is based on the Stephen King short story of the same name, and I’ll point out that whilst I’m not a fan of King’s writing, I do love his story ideas, and I had never heard of this tale before so I was pretty happy to be going into something of his completely blind.

The Monkey tells the story of twins, Bill and Hal (both played by Christian Convery) who have inherited a bizarre curio from their absent father in the shape of a wind-up, drum-playing monkey… that is definitely NOT a toy. Hal winds the key and soon after, their babysitter (Danica Dreyer) is killed in a tragic hibachi restaurant accident.

Hal quickly realises that the monkey had something to do with her death, and turns the key in the hope to kill his brother, who is a mercilessly abusive bully because he was born first. Sadly, the monkey doesn’t do as it’s told, and instead their mother, Lois (Tatiana Maslany) is killed instead.

The twins are taken by their aunt and uncle (Sarah Levy and Osgood Perkins), and after the death of their uncle they both come to the conclusion that the monkey needs to disappear, so they throw it down a well.

We jump forward 25 years later and Hal (now played by Theo James, as is the role of Bill… twins, remember) has an opportunity to spent a final week with his son, Peter (Colin O’Brien) as his step father (Elijah Wood) is going to adopt him. Hal has kept Peter at arms length as the trauma and hasn’t seen his brother in ten years as the potential threat of the monkey is ever present in his mind.

Whilst they are spending their final week together though , strong things start to happen, mysterious deaths seem to start occurring and Hal gets caught up the the threat of the monkey all over again, but who is turning the key?

Perkins has nailed the script and the direction of this film. It looks amazing, the casting is almost perfect, more on that later, and the tone of the film is so dark you could grow mushrooms in it. I laughed out loud on several occasions which for something as violent and gory as this was a surprise. There’s some great jokes that you don’t realise are jokes until the punchline turn up later and the pacing is spot on.

The cast are mostly great. Convery as the young twins is so good in both roles I thought they… I mean, he…. was two separate people. This unfortunately cannot be said of Theo James. I think he was great in the role of Hal, as his Chris Evans styled handsomeness was played off brilliantly with his Jeff Goldblum-like essence. Seriously, watch the film and you’ll get what I mean. Sadly, this doesn’t translate to Bill, who doesn’t feel fleshed out and feels like an afterthought. That might be deliberate to show that the ‘alpha’ twin has now merely become a shadow of his bother, but it doesn’t 100% read that way. Levy and Perkins as the aunt and uncle ate only briefly in the film but are such strange character that watching them is so weirdly uncomfortable, which can be said about a lot of the character. There’s a real feeling of awkwardness and discomfort through the entire film.

I was also really astounded by how stunning the sound design in the film was too. The music the monkey plays, which was a circus sounding version of the John H. Clover-Kind’s 1907 song ‘I Do Like To Be Beside the Seaside’ haunts the film like an audio-ghost.

The best way to describe this film is that it’s the best parts of a Final Destination film mixed with something like The Monkey’s Paw short story by W. W. Jacobs. As I said I’ve not read the original King story so maybe the Jacobs’ influence is there too.

All in all, the film is great. It’s has that silliness that early Peter Jackson films had, but with a higher production value. The ending has to be seen to be believed.

Extras: The potential for interesting extras is let down by three that sound promising but don’t even go for 5 minutes each.

Outrageously Gory Thoroughly Gratuitous and is a far too brief look at the special effects… remember when special effects docos were almost as long as the film? Damn I long for those days.

The Cast of the Monkey is again, far too short as it takes in the cast.

Becoming Hal and Bill is another short one looking at the actor Theo James, playing the adult twins.

Film: 9/10

Extras: 3/10

Rewatchability: 5/10

This 4K Bluray was purchased from JB Hifi