150 Word Review: 'The Monkey' (2025)
Low-key freaks
I was underwhelmed by The Monkey, director Oz Perkins' follow-up to his hit serial killer film Longlegs. Underwhelmed, but not put off. Based on a classic Stephen King short story, The Monkey is a comedy-horror that delivers slightly more comedy than horror, which means the tone is… quirky. The deadpan humor dominates Perkins' vibe, followed by fantastically gratuitous gore.
Theo James portrays twins, the hot new trend for 2025. One neurotic, the other insane. As boys, these brothers discovered a cursed wind-up monkey that their deadbeat dad had packed away. Wind the monkey up, and someone dies, and it's rarely who you want to bite it. Which brings me to a superficial beef: the prop monkey, featured prominently, looked brand new, not the dreaded antique it’s supposed to be. A good prop can make or break a horror movie: Freddie's glove, Phantasm's orbs. Hellraiser's puzzlebox. The Monkey looks 3D printed.