Anything, and I mean anything can be haunted. Dolls, cars, mirrors, bongs. Trust nothing, not even yourself. And definitely don’t trust a monkey holding a stick, because that can only spell trouble. 

So, The Monkey is the latest film from director Osgood Perkins, who just last year dropped Longlegs, one of my favorite horror movies of 2024. It actually feels like I liked Longlegs a lot more than most people it seems. I think the absolutely stellar marketing set expectations exceedingly high, and people walked away disappointed if it was anything less than the scariest movie of the decade. And sure, it wasn’t, but Perkins did establish himself as a very competent horror director in my eyes. It’s far from perfect, but I found Longlegs to be incredibly methodical and overwhelmingly dark in a way that would have come off as wholly comical if it were in different hands. But hey, comical is apparently in Perkin’s wheelhouse as well.

And there’s no months-long ad campaign to blow smoke up its own ass this time. Heck, the best this film got is a stellarly stupid line from the trailer (the monkey that likes killing our family is back). Is this the “he was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders just before she died” of 2025? But thankfully, The Monkey is no Madame Web, due in part to the fact that The Monkey is actually in on the joke. The film is a darkly comical horror film that manages to balance reflections on death and mortality with over-the-top, slapstick-style kills and gore. It manages to be funny without relying on things like genre cliches and meta-irony that so many horror comedies these days tend to fall back on. Even though the style of humor isn’t always the strongest, I still respect it for at least having its own comedic voice. For how silly it is, I feel it doesn’t go as wild with the premise as it could have, but even still, I had a great time with this and…I’m about to make a bold claim here, but out of the 4 new movies I’ve seen so far this year, this one is my favorite.

The Monkey centers around the titular toy that appears to make people die in horrendously gruesome ways whenever the key on its back is turned. The sinister simian ends up in the hands of two twin brothers, who suffer the wrath of the beast as people in their life are killed by gruesome, unexplained accidents. After decades of thinking the monkey is gone, a new spring of deaths convinces the now adult brothers to tackle this horror head on once again.

It’s a silly idea straight from the mind of Stephen King, but I like the way Perkins approaches it. This could have easily been an overly-self-aware, camera winking movie that knows how dumb it is, but Perkins manages to take that central idea and give it a bit more depth. Not a whole lot of depth, but a respectable amount at least. The setup is taken seriously enough to where you can feel the weight of the horror, but it never gets to a point of being over dramatic. It’s a balance not easy to achieve, one that a lot of films opt to ignore and just heavily swing one way or the other. Through this we get to see a bit more of Perkins’ wit, which we only got tiny slivers of in Longlegs. It’s dry, it’s off putting and it’s morbid, and a lot of the times it worked for me. Sometimes it felt like some of the quirky, awkward dialogue from indie comedies was pulled in, other times the humor is felt through its editing, with perfectly cut scene jumps to interrupt sentences and screams. 

But a good chunk of the comedy is more or less brought on by the star, Theo James. Due to an unconventional and tragic childhood, James’ Hal is a bit on the stunted side, incapable of making lasting and meaningful relationships, even with his own son. There isn’t a ton of nuance to his performance, but James’ dumbfounded and frustrated reactions to the horror that surrounds him makes for great comedic setups at times. It’s almost like he’s the straight man in a comedy, but instead of the traditional hijinks that would befall him, it’s people getting exploded and decapitated in front of him. James also pulls double duty as Hal’s twin brother Bill, though I can’t talk too much about him without getting into spoilers. What I can say is that the performance feels similar, yet off in its own unique way that manages to be a fun antithesis to Hal. And while we’re at it, Christian Converny does an equal good job portraying the twins at a younger age. But outside of a few choice one-off appearances, including director Osgood Perkins himself, I thought a lot of the side character performances weren’t especially great. Most of them are pretty one note, but they tended to feel a tad too inauthentic to the point like it felt they were trying too hard to fulfill a certain type of character archetype. Not the worst thing in the world, but still pretty noticeable. 

But what is undeniable here is the kills, because damn, these are some of the most fun horror kills I’ve seen in quite a while. Punches are definitely not pulled and no blood bag is spared as people start to expire in some disgustingly fun ways. There’s the opening kill involving a harpoon gun and a pretty great cameo that’s super silly, but then there’s another moment involving a body trampled by horses that is just genuinely one of the most disgusting shots I’ve seen in a minute. And there’s plenty of death and destruction to go around, often aiming for cartoonish gore rather than realism, which I think helps keep the film from being a complete downer. It still kind is in the grand scheme of it all, but the film manages to find the humor is the macabre absurdity of it all.

And that’s kind of the point of the film; that death is this absurd occurence that can’t always be predicted or harnessed. It’s a cruel joke that can be both traumatizing and ridiculous, but I think when the film leans into the funny side is where it succeeds the most. There’s an additional plot point involving the fear of your children inheriting your trauma that doesn’t come through super strongly. It definitely works, but it never actually resonated with me emotionally or made me actually feel anything for the characters. Maybe that’s the downfall of leaning into the absurdity of the plot, but I don’t think I would have wanted it any other way. I think it’s good to balance the ridiculousness with the serious, but compared to something that takes a similar path like The Substance, those serious moments just don’t carry the same emotional weight to really sit with me.

If you maybe felt slighted by Longlegs, I think you should at least give The Monkey a shot. There’s a much more unique narrative voice here in my opinion, one that elevates a familiar story in a way you may have thought Longlegs had been missing. It’s one of the better horror comedies of recent memory, putting actual effort into the humor along with the shocking imagery. Though it may not possess the same creative identity as an Aster or an Eggers, I still think it’s leagues better than the very similar films some of the big horror distributors have put out over the past several years. To put it into layman’s terms, it’s just the right amount of monkey business, even if it doesn’t go fully bananas.

RATING

THE MONKEY THAT LIKES KILLING OUR FAMILY

The name is a mouthful, but the cocktail itself is pretty straightforward. If you’re familiar with Negronis, and more specifically the Boulevardier, you’ll find a lot of familiarity here. It’s a spirit forward cocktail leading with bitter licorice notes, however, the implementation of banana and chocolate flavors give quite a different experience on the backend. Engage with this monkey at your own risk; just know that you have very little control over what comes next.

INGREDIENTS

• 1oz rye whiskey
• 1oz Campari
• 3/4oz sweet vermouth
• 1/2oz banana liqueur
• 2 dashes chocolate bitters
• pinch of salt
• Garnish: carmalized banana slice

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Add ingredients to a mixing glass with ice, then stir to chill.
2. Strain into a chilled coup glass.
3. Garnish with a carmalized banana slice.