The Monkey (2025)

Watched 2/12/25 (theater)

The whacky gimmick-forward setpiece machine experienced its heyday in the ‘80s. The concept produced everything from sci-fi comedies like Innerspace to pop horror treats like Gremlins. These movies were light on character, excelled in low-budget visual storytelling, and were absolutely loaded with gags. Osgood Perkins’ The Monkey does its best to recreate that shape in an aggressive swerve from last years’ breakout indie hit, Longlegs. Perkins coolly refuses to redo the tone and visual vocabulary of his calling card film in favor of a tonally rambunctious black comedy with all the unpredictable flavor, and messiness, of the films it pays homage to.

This Stephen King adaptation is also a catalogue expansion for Neon, which I usually think of as producing more patient, mature stories. This one is on the other end of the spectrum, loud and juvenile. That’s a plus for the studio, branching out and potentially finding new audiences with what could certainly be described as a theme park ride. But on Perkins’ front, in service of the chaotic nature of this theme park ride’s script, The Monkey does sometimes sacrifice airtight direction at the altar of shock. Like Longlegs, there is often still a strong attention paid to painterly, portentous composition. Dark rooms tinged with neon blemishes and dim, eerie fluorescents craft a tremendously otherworldly dreamscape. However, the second half takes some turns into ridiculousness that occasionally display the direction and effects as lacking in consistency.

The Monkey begins with its most athletic beats. Several vignettes play out, all focusing around a toy monkey that controls life and death. Mostly death. Twin teenage boys Bill and Hal, both played by Christian Convery, are raised by their single mother (an on-point, enthusiastic Tatiana Maslany) through a series of accidentally Mortal Kombat-esque fatalities, each more painful and exotic than the last. With pitch-perfect needle drops, stellar comedic timing, careful camerawork, and some very well-realized cameos, The Monkey checks all of the boxes you could want from its high-concept premise in its first half.

Late in that first half, Bill and Hal become adults (Theo James, who continues to stand out in everything) through a time jump, and the titular Monkey begins killing again. Perkins really understands the power of the prop Monkey they created, and uses his gift for shots and sound effects to stress its malevolent look as well as the comedy inherent to such a proposition as a killer toy. The attempts at thematic weight are where Perkins sometimes falls short. Somewhere deep down, there’s possibly a second layer beyond the cruel joke of “everyone dies” that the film is predicated on, but Perkins never really gets there despite trying to work in some drama as Bill’s son, Petey, is introduced.

In fact, second half introductions such as the son and an adult Bill seem to have overdrawn Perkins, as the movie sometimes, seemingly lazily, moves into brighter location work that took me out of its original pitch-black fairytale complexion. One of the best things about Longlegs is that it never gave you a chance to breathe in its overwhelming bleakness. It was consistently night in its world and full of death around every corner. Here, daylight rears its ugly head and underbaked drama threatens to bore as the movie struggles to hold as much consistency in mood as its predecessor. And I’m no prude, but an overabundance of swearing also drowns out whatever point the movie is going for to the point of annoyance. These issues are far from critical but are noticeable irks for someone who felt so immersed by the world of Longlegs.

This Monkey has a lot to like. There’s laugh-out-loud comedy. There are creative kills where you won’t know whether to laugh or whimper. And I barely even mentioned this creative team’s continued success in the editing and transitions departments. Wow. When at its best, the movie is brilliantly deranged and electric. Perkins clearly has moves that he can continue to use and perfect in future movies. It’s only when he tries to overshift gears that things get a little sloppy. Luckily, there should be plenty of time for this writer/director to continue playing in his sandbox of thrills, chills, and shit-eating grins.

7/10