Directed by Osgood Perkins — Screenplay by Osgood Perkins.
Filmmaker Osgood Perkins is fast becoming one of the most interesting horror filmmakers on the rise. Following three relatively unknown features, including the quite good The Blackcoat’s Daughter, Perkins finally had his breakthrough as a filmmaker in 2024 with the excellent horror-thriller flick Longlegs. Now in 2025, he’s hoping to fully etch his name into stone, as a prominent horror filmmaker with Keeper, releasing later this year, and The Monkey, an adaptation of a Stephen King short story, which was released in theaters at the end of February. Here Perkins is trying to prove himself in another horror subgenre, namely that of the horror-comedy, but, while there is a lot to like here, it isn’t quite as effective as his 2024 hit.
Osgood Perkins’ The Monkey follows twin siblings Hal and Billy Shelburn (both played by Theo James when they’re adults and by Christian Convery when they’re kids) whose lives are ruined by a cursed toy monkey, that has been passed down from their father. Following a traumatic childhood in which many loved ones were killed as a result of the cursed monkey, they’ve become estranged as adults, and Hal even has a complicated relationship with his son (played by Colin O’Brien). When the monkey seemingly has resurfaced, as people start to drop dead, at a moment in time when Hal is spending time with his son, he has to start opening up about his family demons.
Perkins is with his horror comedy going for something akin to the kind of thrilling horror of Final Destination paired with dark, absurdist humor. Although it often doesn’t have the same suspense horror that the Final Destination film series has in its peak, there is no denying that Perkins and his team have thought up some really inventive death scenes, not all of which have been revealed in the marketing, and the over-the-topness of Perkins’ film’s crazy death scenes sometimes really works to great effect. Of course, like many comedies, the humor is hit-or-miss here, and, from time to time, the comedy does land with a disappointing thud. But there are plenty of moments when the comedic editing really hits and when the film really shines as an odd, absurdist beast of a horror comedy.
Admittedly, I don’t think it is quite as funny as the best horror comedies or as memorable, but I like a lot of what we got here, including some of the performance notes landed by Theo James (who works best as adult Bill), Tatiana Maslany, Adam Scott, and Elijah Wood. However, I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about the film as a whole, and it’s not just because its brand of comedy fluctuates from style to style and effectiveness to effectiveness, as I mostly accepted that this was likely. My main issues are more so concerned with how it sometimes feels a little bit too meandering, in part because of the structure of the film. Although there are some really good scenes with Hal and Bill as kids, those early flashback scenes take up a lot of time, and I found myself thinking it took an inordinate amount of time for the present day main narrative to start, which is why I wrote in my notes that parts of the film felt a little bit unwieldy or heavy, to the extent that the film overall felt slightly imbalanced. I also thought that the father-son aspect of the film could’ve used some retooling, as the writing of Colin O’Brien’s character felt a little bit generic and repetitive.
Still, though, I think there is still a lot to like about Osgood Perkin’s The Monkey, which is, on the whole, a somewhat effective subgenre experimentation that does a good job of communicating its themes concerning processing death, generational trauma, and family demons. Here Perkins definitely shows that he is capable of dialling zany, dark humor up to 11 and blending it with the horror genre, and it’ll be interesting to see if he returns to this subgenre in the future, because he shows glimpses here that indicate he has what it takes to make something special with these ingredients.
6 out of 10
– Review Written by Jeffrey Rex Bertelsen.
I'm Jeffrey Rex 