‘The Monkey’ Review: The Guy Behind the Most Somber Horrors Made a Wacky, Bloody Midnighter

Osgood Perkins, whom many of us will permanently associate with Legally Blonde, is, of course, horror royalty. At this point in his career, he’s embraced the family business and has crafted and presented us with some of the most somber brooding horror known for its ~*vibes*~ as much as it is for its memorable performances. Having forged a signature style, the maker has become a purveyor of doppelganger horrors, familial trauma, and a distinctive visual style. Staying true to himself as a horror filmmaker and reaching into his background in comedy, comes his latest about a haunted object ripped from the pages of a Stephen King short story. That latest is The Monkey, which revels in the comedy of horrific deaths.

But it’s not as simple as that, despite much of the movie being a greatest-hits montage of gory explosions. The Monkey is, in some ways, about the frank randomness of death and chooses to find a bit of joy in the world’s strange way of picking people off. Smashed into a story about twins haunted by a cursed object is a tale about loss and grief and the desperation to find meaning and order in the chaotic cosmos.

Theo James leads in two roles, Hal and Bill, adult twins who took different approaches to recovering from a rotten childhood. Their younger selves (played by Christian Convery) grew up with an absent father who left them a closet full of treasures, including a drumming monkey toy with a windup key. The two rival siblings quickly discover the toy (not a toy! Don’t call it a toy!) has some sort of curse or power where any time it’s wound up and begins to drum, someone random dies horrifically. On one such occasion, that person is their babysitter; on another, it’s their mother, and so forth. As adult men, each takes to moving on after those deaths quite differently, one trying to escape into a different life managing his role as a barely-there father with one of a contributing member to middle class society, the other desperately seeking vengeance from his old one.

Hiding from a cursed object is never easy, no matter how many yards you bury it in, how many pieces you chop it in, or how many wells you chuck it in. And this haunted object, though brutal and unforgiving, has a morbid sense of humor. If you were expecting Perkins’ usual brooding tone, you’re in for somewhat of a surprise when smash cuts and exploding blood bags show up to play. If you’re one of the sickos who loved the 80s for their overuse of bright red blood splashes, then you’ll be comfortable in this grindhouse-tinted popcorn gorefest midnighter. It’s the kind of movie that makes you pause your munching when the camera is steady lest a surprising death cause you to accidentally inhale a kernel (which might leave your audience in stitches).

What is otherwise a simple Beetlejuice scented bloodbath gets a bit muddied by a bigger story about different experiences with death and grief. Perkins seems to want to nail down a story of familial trauma and the random nature of the gutless universe as an agent of demise, but it feels misplaced in this bonkers horror comedy. The desire to add meat to this popcorn comedy feels at odds with the film’s tone, making the story feel both undercooked and overdeveloped for a collection of gore bombs.
While we don’t all agree on his works, Perkins is the sort of name that stirs up interest (as a rumored post-credit teaser for his next project seemed to). What’s magical about his latest is that we are seeing a very singular filmmaker apply his signature style to a whole different tone, showing us the versatility of something we thought was predictable. Though not the first to find comedy in the end of the world, with The Monkey, the apocalypse is funnier than ever.

The Monkey hits theaters February 21, 2025