Last night I couldn't sleep after working on an implementation of n8n that I'm learning so decided to watch a movie and gave it a try to The Monkey (2025), I went through the entire movie so at least I manage to finish it, its the latest movie from Osgood Perkins who gave us Long Legs last year and I'm feeling kinda mixed about it. The trailer had me thinking this was gonna be another one of those generic horror movies with a silly premise just like Megan, a toy monkey bangs a drum and someone dies, like seriously? but instead of getting a straight up scary movie, we got this over the top horrorcomedy that honestly tries way too hard to be funny. I was actually surprised since Perkins usually makes these slow burn psychologicalhorror films with beautiful visuals and a creepy atmosphere so seeing him go full on comedy was unexpected and I'm not entirely sure it worked.
Source
The movie develop around the story of twin brothers Hal and Bill, role played by Christian Convery as kids and Theo James as adults; who discover this cursed toy monkey between their dad's stuff. Every time they turn the key in its back someone around them dies in some ridiculous over the top way. Their dad, played by Adam Scott; knew about the curse and abandoned the family to protect them but obviously that didn't work out too well. The monkey keeps following them around causing death and destruction, and we see how this affects their relationship over 25 years. The movie also stars Tatiana Maslany as their mom, Elijah Wood in a small but funny role as a parenting guru and even Osgood Perkins himself makes a cameo as their uncle who meets a pretty grouse end. The story starts in 1999 and jumps forward to show how Hal has become estranged from his own son Petey, named after his grandfather; because he is afraid the monkey's curse will affect him too, he was so paranoid about this monkey that he only sees his kid once a year, especially since he never even tells the poor kid why he's such a deadbeat dad. When Hal learns his ex wife plans to let her new husband adopt Petey, he takes the kid on one last trip which of course gets interrupted when the monkey shows up again and starts causing chaos in the town and we find out his brother Bill has been collecting the monkey and using it to try and get revenge on Hal for their mother's death which is a whole other complicated story. I think about it and when I put it on text is hard to imagine this monkey is just sitting there doing nothing until you turn on its key and then people starts dying around, how do you unleash the little but deathly beast.
Source
The first half of the movie actually works pretty well at this point the deaths still have some shock value until the movie falls into a kind of repetitive situation the classic joke that gets too old and doesnt have the same effect anymore. The characters are entertaining enough and there's that Final Destination vibe where you're curious about what crazy death is coming next, if you have seen this kind of movies before then you know the movie becomes depending from getting you a new and more impressive death one after another, thats the hole trick of the movie, although The Monkey has some really creative kills, one involves an electrified swimming pool, another has someone's head catching on fire and there's even one with a swarm of hornets that's pretty wild. The CGI for these deaths isn't always great but some of them look good enough to make you cringe and laugh at the same time. It all becomes a problem the moment you realize there is no real tension in this movie anymore, every death is just a setup for a joke and while it's funny the first couple times by the time you have seen the eighth person randomly explode and everyone just shrugs it off with an "eww," it gets old real fast. The movie has this super dry sense of humor that some people might love but it's so over the top and absurd that it's hard to care about any of the characters or or what happens to them, even the relationship between Hal and his son, which should be the emotional core of the story, feels hollow because the movie never takes anything seriously enough for us to get invested.
The second half of the movie really starts to drag when the jokes repeat themselves, the deaths become predictable and at some point the movie just feels like a bunch of TikTok skits where people die in the most absurd ways possible. The ending is probably the lowest point of the movie, it feels like the writers had no idea how to wrap things up, so they went with the cheapest and dumbest option possible. There's also this weird scene with Death on a pale horse that comes out of nowhere and doesn't really add anything to the story. I think Perkins was trying to say something about how death is inevitable and we should just live in the moment instead of being afraid all the time but that message gets lost in all the chaos and silly jokes. The movie tries to have these deeper moments about grief and family relationships, but then immediately undercuts them with some ridiculous death scene or goofy one liner.
Source
The ending is just as ridiculous as the rest of the movie, after Hal and his twin brother Bill finally reconcile, which should be an emotional moment but isn't; Bill immediately gets his head crushed by their mother's bowling ball in what has to be the most over the top death in the entire movie. It's like the movie is saying "you thought we were going to have a meaningful resolution? nope, here's another splatter scene!" Then Hal and his son Petey drive through town, which has been destroyed by the monkey's killing spree and they decide to keep the monkey with them forever so nobody else can turn the key. It's trying so hard to be profound but it just comes across as trying too hard to shock us one last time. The pale rider scene in particular feels like it was thrown in just because Perkins thought it would look cool, not because it adds anything meaningful to the story, it's like the movie is screaming "GET IT? DEATH IS ALWAYS AROUND US!" when a simple conversation between father and son would have express that message much more effectively.
Is it a bad movie? meh not really, after all it's entertaining if you just want to turn off your brain for a couple hours as I did since I couldn't sleep after my brain was still wired to the universe that is a tool like n8n. The performances are actually pretty good, Theo James does what he can with the part he is given and the kid who plays young Hal is more than descent, I would say very good too. The cinematography is nice with that same vintage feel that Perkins brought to Long Legs that I personally love but that's because I'm bias to that age, I was born early 80's, but it could have been so much more if it had taken itself even a little bit seriously or found a better balance between the horror and comedy elements. The Monkey is just a fun idea that eventually runs out of steam and leaves you wondering what could have been if they'd committed more to either the horror or the emotional aspects of the story instead of constantly undermining them with jokes. If you loved movies like Final Destination but wish they were more ridiculous and less scary, you might enjoy this but if you're looking for something with actual tension or emotional depth, you should probably look elsewhere because this monkey is just here to make you laugh, not scream.
