“Monkey” with the script written by the “Code of Evil” known from the film Director Osgood “Oza” Perkins is without a reason one of the most anticipated horror films of 2025. The trailer presented on January 16, 2025 was displayed 43 million times, after 72 hours the meter already indicated 100 million. The distributing “monkey” company Neon said it was a record of independent horror cinema. This is the most understandable, because this short sequence of several scenes announced a ride without a handle.
Grotesque and comedy horror. “Monkey” was created on the basis of King’s story
As you can easily deduce after the title of the film, the starting point of the whole story is a monkey. In this case, it is a winding and disturbing toy that plays the drum. Note, in the next two paragraphs I present the outline of the plot.
The problem is that when he does this, someone in her vicinity dies in either a very painful or absurdly spectacular way. When we see her for the first time in action, she tries to get rid of Petey Shelburn, the father of the twins Hala and Bill. Soon after, we learn that his attempts failed, he disappeared in mysterious circumstances. Years later, the boys find a muddy monkey in the closet with his things and the nightmare begins again. The brothers quickly find out that this is not an ordinary toy. Rather incorporated Satan. After a series of unfortunate and tragic deaths in their closer and distant family, boys, theoretically, the infernal artifact manages. However, this is only silence before the great storm.
For 25 years, nothing bad happens theoretically, but in the meantime we learn that accidents related to a demonic monkey left a permanent mark on the twins. As children, they didn’t really like each other, they just started to avoid. Hal as an adult man, fearing about his loved ones, tries to isolate himself from the world, even his son Petey only meets once a year. He is afraid that the monkey will get him, but he never explains his descendant where his strange attitude. Because in fact, the excuse would sound idiotic: “Son, I avoid you at all costs so that you would not be killed by a toy monkey from my father’s closet, who disappeared from our family’s life without a word of explanation.” Now he and Petey will have to deal with a demonic toy together.
Stephen King lovers must be on guard, the script of Oza Perkins is a very loose adaptation of the story of the king of horror. The director joined the project at the invitation of the Atomic Monster manufacturer, which a few years ago bought the rights to the work and even had a ready script. Perkins, however, did not like this text. For “Empire” he explained:
In Atomic Monster they had a very serious scenario. Very serious. He was too serious, so I told them that it wasn’t playing to me. All myk with this monkey is that people around her die in various crazy ways. I thought I was in this expert. My parents died in the strangest circumstances described in newspaper headers.
Director’s father Anthony Perkins, known for his role in Hitchcock’s “Psychosis”, died in 1992 at the age of 60. His death was the result of AIDS complications. For years, the actor kept his illness secret, in fear of stigmatization, he treated under the changed name. The last months before the death of Perkins and his family were literally followed and persecuted by paparazzi, who in diagnosis sniffed sensation. The family only after the death of the actor. In turn, the mother of Oza Perkins, Berinthia Berenson, died in tragic circumstances nine years after her husband’s death. She was a passenger of one of the planes kidnapped by terrorists that crashed on the World Trade Center towers. He decided to work through the new film. As he emphasized in an interview with “Empire”:
I spent a large part of my life gathering after the tragedy, I felt bad. It all seemed impeccably unfair to me, I wondered why such things happened to me and my family. Now I am older and I realized that it meets everyone. Everyone is dying. Sometimes in a dream, and sometimes in crazy and strange ways, e.g. those I have experienced in the past. But everyone is dying. So I thought that maybe the best way to approach this topic would be to do it with a smile. (…)
Stephen King had no comments, he didn’t make me change anything. Manufacturers said it is great. (…) From the very beginning it was clear that these would not be the scenes in the type of Jump Scare and it would not be just dark – I wanted it to be honest and allowed to feel redemption. That viewers would have a good time at the cinema.
I have no doubt that the cast of the “monkey” had a great time on the set. Theo James in a double role managed quite well, with dignity and talent. My heart hurts that as Bill, he has a terribly peasant hairstyle, but by the way this twin is just a buck. The young actor Christian Convery managed the double role without major problems. Known from the series “Orphan Black” and “Patron Hulk” Tatiana Maslany as the mother of the twins falls pleasantly in memory, also great as young Petey checked Colin O’Brien. (that is, Frodo with “and”) has an absolutely fantastic episode of stepfather. My extreme admiration was also aroused by the supporting character of Ricky – a boy from a small town who is unlucky to find a monkey. Rohan Campbell has been so characterized for this role that the Duffer brothers must now regret that they did not fill him in “Stranger Things”. The director Oz Perkins did not refuse a joyful episode and appears as a pitcher chip, uncle Hala and Bill.
Stephen King is this film honestly delighted
The good news is that, the author of the story, whose film “monkey” is a loose adaptation, is happy with Osgood Perkins production. The writer at the end of January on the platform: “You have not seen anything like ‘monkey’. This is extremely crazy. As someone who from time to time allows myself to unleash and unhook roller skates, I write it with full admiration.” This is a huge praise from the mouth of a man who did not like the screening of “shining”, which Stanley Kubrick did. In 2016, King explained in a conversation that in his opinion the film with Jacek Nicholson is like “beautiful Cadillac without an engine inside”.
I feel something similar in connection with the “monkey”.
On the one hand, the Oza Perkins film really provides a lot of dark, grotesque sense of humor, spectacular in their twisting scenes of subsequent deaths, which in themselves are suitable for film faces. Artificial blood is poured honestly here, the splashes of the guts are impressively sweating, and the climate is truly tragicomic in the style of the best gore. Ideas for increasingly twisted accidents Osgood Perkins would certainly be envied by scriptwriters in this respect the fertile series of films “Fucking Destiny”. For example, a nightmare scene is also beautifully suggestive and psychedelic – a bit like a drunken song from the classic “Dumbo”, only in a psychopathic version. In general, the “monkey” is a qualitative and well -played production with ambitions, which from a technical point of view is sleek until nice.
But something sits down with the narrative. I miss some tension between the bold gags. We move from the scenes of absolute dissolution to not necessarily well-decisive considerations of psychological and philosophical nature, dissonance is simply striking. So there was a few moments during the screening when the viewer has the right to get a little bored while waiting for the next Jatka. Maybe the problem is that these are too phenomenal in themselves to keep the character typical of Perkins to keep the character in full interest.
Using a car metaphor used by King, I would say that it was a bit as if after a widespread highway stretch of a worshiped fool at a speed of 220 km/h, you had to break through the side and leaky road, in addition on a tow truck. You are still sitting in the same luxurious car and you have a moment to admire the views outside the window or get acquainted with the complexities of the family -oriented family relationships, which can be the most interesting. But what you see and hear does not engage in the same way as a loss of driving towards the Hollywood sunset.
So my problem with Perkins movie is that I just seem unevenly composed, somewhere between successive deaths we go too slowly and we get a bit too little meat from too laconic heroes written. But this may not disturb someone who is buying the way Oz Perkins tells his films. I will not hide that after his previous film “Longles” I promised myself a lot, and finally I felt a little disappointed with the rather obvious ending of the film. Because the intrigue was built lush and I expected something more revealing. Here, at the same time, it is abundant in some respects, as well as too sparingly under others. However, this does not change the fact that it is still one of the more no matter horrors of recent years and a tasty piece of original cinema.
Source: Gazeta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
