The Monkey

Writer + Director ~ Osgood Perkins

2025, USA-UK-Canada

Cast ~ Theo James, Tatiana Maslany, Christian Convery

With ‘THE MONKEY’, Osgood Perkins swaps the dread of Stephen King’s short story for a horror-comedy-splatterfest, apparently because his conclusion is “death happens”. Which is stated throughout repeatedly so that loss is meaningless come finale and we simply end on a bad taste gag.

It’s a horror-comedy where kids swearing, a stoner priest, goofy Elijah Wood and big sideburns are the source of amusement, and the convoluted deaths are punchlines. There’s a juvenility familiar to broader comedies here, not just in its ethos (Death Happens!), but it also wants to have a more legitimate story about fraternity and parenthood, curses and responsibility. It doesn’t quite gel, although always great to look at and diverting. There are good double performances from Theo James and Christian Convery as the cursed twins (you know: one good one, one bad one) and well-executed set pieces, but there is no real feeling of the terror of the premise: it’s mostly hijinks.

Osgood is obviously a talented director and always one to watch, can mount scenes expertly, but we’re a long way from the maturity and sure slowburn of ‘I am the Pretty thing That Lives in the House’ and the offbeat reimagining of Grimm’s fairytales with ‘Gretel & Hansel’. His philosophy (Death Happens!) would seem to stem from this own loss - his father Anthony died from AIDS, his mother Berry Berenson in the 9/11 attacks - but the insight is no more than 'Final Destination' deathtrap deep, the potential outrageousness being the point.

Caught between two intentions of being horror-funny and yet thinking that it is also saying something, ‘The Monkey’ falls short: And again, as with ‘Longlegs’, I was left thinking “That’s your ending??"