The Monkey: Mark Kermode’s horror movie review (video).
At long last, someone looked at Stephen King’s short story The Monkey and thought, You know what this needs? More comedy and a higher decapitation count. Enter Osgood Perkins, a man who has apparently taken his own personal tragedies, thrown them in a blender with gallons of fake blood, and decided the best way to deal with the grim randomness of death is to laugh through the carnage.
For those unfamiliar with King’s original tale, The Monkey revolves around an innocent-looking wind-up toy monkey that claps its cymbals together. And every time it does? Someone dies in an absurdly gruesome fashion. Simple, effective, terrifying. But for this 2025 adaptation, the cymbals have been swapped for a drum (thanks, Disney lawyers!), and the horror is laced with a thick streak of dark, absurdist comedy that turns it into one of the strangest Stephen King adaptations in recent memory.
The film follows twin brothers Hal (Theo James) and Bill (also Theo James, because Hollywood has declared no horror film is complete without an actor playing their own twin), whose childhood is haunted by their father’s mysteriously vanishing act and a monkey toy that just won’t stop killing people. After a few early accidental murders—babysitter loses her head, uncle gets offed—the twins toss the thing down a well, assuming that’s the end of their nightmare. Because, as we all know, throwing cursed objects down wells always works.
Fast forward twenty-five years: Hal is estranged from Bill and his own son, Petey (because generational trauma is a must in horror). But when people start dying in bizarre Final Destination-style accidents, it’s clear the monkey is back—and Bill, now a fully unhinged maniac, is wielding it like a personal weapon of mass destruction. The climax involves a town-wide death spree, a rogue swarm of wasps (of course), and an appearance by what seems to be the literal embodiment of the Pale Horseman. No notes, Osgood Perkins.
From a horror perspective, The Monkey is equal parts terrifying and ridiculous, leaning into elaborate, Rube Goldberg-style death sequences that feel like a cross between The Conjuring and Looney Tunes. Perkins’ decision to inject comedy into the carnage was a bold one, and while some critics found it tonally jarring, others applauded the sheer audacity of making a haunted toy movie that feels like a cosmic joke about the futility of existence.
The cast is solid, with Theo James committing to both roles (and hopefully getting two paychecks), while Elijah Wood and Adam Scott show up to remind us that yes, this is a real movie and not just an extended SNL sketch. But the real star here is the monkey itself—a deceptively innocent-looking toy that somehow manages to be the most sinister thing in the film, despite just sitting there and banging its little drum.
In true King fashion, The Monkey isn’t just about supernatural horror; it’s about guilt, trauma, and how we deal with the inescapable doom of life (cheery!). But in true Osgood Perkins fashion, it also features heads rolling, blood spraying, and a level of gleeful mayhem that makes Evil Dead 2 look restrained.
King himself called it “batshit insane,” and honestly, that about sums it up. The Monkey is an absurd, gory, darkly funny descent into madness that takes one of King’s lesser-known short stories and cranks the insanity up to eleven. It won’t be for everyone, but if you like your horror with a side of pitch-black humor and more inexplicable freak accidents than a Final Destination marathon, this one’s for you. Just… maybe don’t keep any antique wind-up toys in your house afterward.
