The Monkey (Review) It’s Not Hust Haunted, It’s Violently Petty.”

Let’s make one thing clear from the jump: The Monkey is not subtle. Like, at all. It’s a horror film that lets its cymbal-clashing freak toy wear the pants in the family, often quite literally tearing everyone else’s off in a burst of blood, brains, or existential dread. Directed by Osgood Perkins (Gretel & Hansel) and co-produced by none other than James Wan, The Monkey is as darkly absurd as its title, a cursed-toy tale done up in lush ’80s horror gloss with enough bitter family dysfunction to give Hereditary a migraine.

And we’re here for it.

Directed by Osgood Perkins (yes, that Osgood Perkins who gave us The Blackcoat’s Daughter and Gretel & Hansel), this adaptation of Stephen King’s 1980 short story isn’t content with just being creepy. It’s a full-blown acid trip into generational trauma, dysfunctional siblinghood, and, yes, monkey business. It’s a cursed-object horror with the gall to be funny, sad, and completely illogical, sometimes within the same scene.

It’s not always elegant, but it is never boring.

Skip to a Specific Section

The Premise | The Monkey 2025

We meet Hal and Bill as kids, identical twins with a chasm between them you could drive a hearse through. Their dad vanished years ago under bizarre circumstances (think antique shop, monkey, and the aforementioned harpoon), and their mum, Lois, has stashed away a box of his belongings like a horror piñata waiting to be cracked open.

Inside is the monkey. It’s vintage, vaguely demonic, and very into cardio. When wound up, it plays its little cymbals. Then someone dies.

Simple, right? Not quite.

See, the monkey doesn’t follow rules. Not really. Sometimes it kills people who deserve it. Sometimes it just feels like ruining someone’s hibachi dinner. It has no moral compass, just a penchant for theatrical deaths and impeccable timing.

After a string of escalating fatalities (babysitter, mum, various relatives), the monkey is eventually tossed down a well, which, in horror logic, is the equivalent of “pushing snooze.” Decades later, the toy resurfaces, and the now-adult twins must face their shared trauma, shared curse, and shared taste in flannel.

Double Trouble: Hal and Bill

Theo James plays both Hal and Bill as adults, and frankly, he deserves a drink, a raise, and maybe a therapist. He gives Hal the kind of exhausted, emotionally constipated warmth you’d expect from a man who fears his child might inherit a demonic toy legacy. Bill, meanwhile, is the human embodiment of emotional eczema, dry, abrasive, and hard to be around for long.

What makes their dynamic sing is that they’re not caricatures. Hal isn’t the pure-hearted hero, and Bill’s not twirling a mustache. They’re both damaged. They’re both complicit. And they’re both still very, very mad about who turned the key back in 1999.

And spoiler-but-not-spoiler: the answer may not matter as much as you think.

Non-linear Monkey Mayhem

One of the most interesting choices Perkins makes here is when to tell the story. This is not a neat flashback structure; it’s a scrambled egg of timelines, shifting from past to present and back again like a cursed mixtape. One moment, young Hal and Bill are staring into the monkey’s dead eyes; the next, grown-up Hal is in a pawn shop trying to sell it like it’s a cursed Beanie Baby.

This technique works more often than it doesn’t. It’s confusing at first, sure, but it eventually reveals itself to be the film’s best trick. Memory is trauma, trauma is cyclical, and no one escapes without scars, or cymbal-induced PTSD.

That said, there’s a fine line between artistic non-linearity and narrative spaghetti. The Monkey occasionally blurs that line, especially in the third act when multiple threads collide in a death-trap-filled finale that feels like Home Alone by way of Hereditary.

The Supporting Cast of Casual Weirdos

Tatiana Maslany brings brittle warmth to a role that barely gives her enough screen time. She’s excellent, but underused.

Adam Scott gives us stoic “Divorced Dad with a Secret” energy as adult Petey.

Christian Convery and Colin O’Brien pull their weight as younger versions of Petey and the twins. There’s genuine pain in their performances, even if some of their dialogue sounds like it wandered in from an early 2000s CW show.

Elijah Wood pops up as a twitchy antiques dealer with a death wish. It’s as glorious as it sounds.

The standout, oddly enough, is Rohan Campbell as Ricky, a sleazy PI hired to find the monkey, who ends up being the human equivalent of a plot device crossed with an energy drink. He’s probably the only character you’ll actively root against.

Movies with the word MONKEY in the title: We Got A Monkey’s Paw | Monkey Man 2024 | Monkey Shines (DVD by Umbrella)

Blood, Guts & Flying Hairdos

Let’s talk kills.

This movie is gleeful in its gore. Deaths include, but are not limited to, decapitations, spontaneous combustions, well-induced trauma, and one particularly sticky explosion involving Aunt Ida and an ill-fated hairdryer.

And then there are the wasps.

Not just regular wasps. Candy Man level wasps. They appear with zero foreshadowing, zero context, and 100% chaos. It’s glorious and nonsensical and just another reason why this film absolutely refuses to follow the horror rulebook.

Mythology? We Don’t Need No Stinking Mythology

If you’re looking for tight lore, look elsewhere.

The monkey’s powers are vague. Sometimes it teleports. Sometimes it just appears in boxes like cursed Amazon Prime. Sometimes it seems sentient. Other times, it just wants to ruin your garage sale. And there are no clear rules. The one person who turns the key never dies. Except maybe once. But also maybe not. There’s a moment late in the film when you’re not sure if any of this is real or if Hal’s just deeply unwell. Frankly? That ambiguity works. Horror doesn’t always need an origin story and a Latin incantation. Sometimes, it just needs a creepy monkey and a whole lot of unresolved brotherly rage.

Final Act Mayhem

The climax is a bit of a mess, in the best way. There’s a house full of booby traps. A forced monkey retrieval mission. Dead relatives falling from the sky (literally). And finally, a confrontation between Hal and Bill that almost feels redemptive. Until it isn’t.

Let’s just say the monkey has the final word.

And yes, Petey turns the key. Because, of course, he does.

The Verdict

The Monkey is messy. It’s inconsistent. It contradicts itself. But you know what? It’s also oddly moving, wildly entertaining, and just weird enough to stand out in a crowded field of IP-driven horror clones. There’s no franchise here, despite what the final shot might tease. But as a one-off cursed object tale with flair, pathos, and more cymbal crashes than a high school marching band, this monkey claps.