A.V. Opinions: I had low expectations for The Monkey. Was I wrong?

I went into The Monkey with low expectations. It’s a Stephen King adaptation, and let’s be honest, those are a gamble. For every The Shining, we get about ten Dreamcatchers. The trailers looked fine, nothing particularly special, and February horror movies are usually where studios send movies to die. But, I had a free Saturday night, so why not? What I got was one of the biggest surprises of the year so far.

First off, Osgood Perkins is a director I’ve had my eye on. I wouldn’t call him a favorite, but he’s definitely one of the most interesting voices in horror right now. Longlegs solidified that for me, and now with The Monkey, he’s further proven that he’s a director worth watching. His movies always have a certain eerie quality, but this one had something I didn’t expect: humor. And not just any humor, my kind of humor.

I’m a huge fan of Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club author), and even though he has absolutely nothing to do with this movie, I swear The Monkey feels like something he could have written. It has that same absurdist, anarchic worldview where death isn’t just a tragedy, it’s bizarre, grotesque, and sometimes funny in the most uncomfortable way. There are moments in this movie where someone dies in front of you, and instead of an emotional breakdown, you’re left wide-eyed, jaw dropped, muttering, “What the fuck just happened?” And then the movie moves on because death doesn’t wait around for you to process it. The way this film portrays death reminds me of Chuck Palahniuk’s work, where death doesn’t come with sentimentality, but with a raw, sometimes twisted honesty.

That’s something I really loved about The Monkey. The way it treats death isn’t overly sentimental or melodramatic; it just happens. It’s quick, it’s brutal, sometimes it’s absurd, but it happens. And when you start thinking about Osgood Perkins as a filmmaker, it’s hard not to connect that approach to his own life. His father, Anthony Perkins (Psycho), died of AIDS. His mother was on one of the planes that hit the Twin Towers. If anyone understands that death comes in all forms, tragic, sudden, surreal, it’s him. This film explores the inevitability of death and the many forms it can take, not just physically but emotionally. It’s about how we embrace death, how we move through it, and how we keep living despite it. I don’t know if he’s talked about how that shaped his approach to The Monkey, but I’d be shocked if it didn’t.

The kills? Mostly fantastic. There were a few CGI moments I wish had been handled differently, but overall, the film respected the horror genre’s legacy of gruesome, practical effects. There’s a balance between making things look real and making them fun, and The Monkey walks that line well.

Overall, I thought The Monkey was a blast. The pacing is tight, the narration gives it that unmistakable Stephen King feel, and the performances are strong, especially from the young actors and, later in the film, the lead played by Theo James.

So yeah, I was not expecting to love this movie, but here we are. It’s early 2025, and this is already a contender for my top 10 of the year. If you’re a fan of weird, unsettling horror with a dark sense of humor, go check it out. I’m glad I did.

-Brad McBoom