The Monkey, Osgood Perkins’s latest foray into the realm of horror, emerges as a curious amalgam of the director’s signature familial dysfunction and Stephen King’s penchant for malevolent playthings. While it marks a departure from Perkins’s previous, more somber offerings, this cinematic primate still bears the unmistakable fingerprints of a filmmaker grappling with his craft. Osgood Perkins is a director whose career has so far been defined by a series of missteps, both perplexing and frustrating. His previous films, The Blackcoat’s Daughter, formerly February (read the review HERE) and Longlegs (review HERE), left me less than impressed; one a sluggish exercise in mumbling horror, the other a confounding mess of muddled themes and aimless direction. To call Perkins’ storytelling style erratic would be generous, as his films often feel as though they were made on the fly, driven more by a vague desire for artful ambiguity than any clear cinematic intention. It’s no wonder that the filmmaker’s track record has left me deeply skeptical of anything he touches.
Set against the backdrop of small-town Maine; a landscape familiar to King’s readers, The Monkey oscillates between the 1990s and present day, weaving a tale of twin brothers haunted by a demonic toy drummer. The premise, redolent of a Final Destination knock-off with a dash of Rube Goldberg sadism, promises more than Perkins’s direction ultimately delivers. That said, enjoyment in The Monkey is a fleeting experience. While the film gleams with moments of fun and wit, it still suffers from the same fundamental weaknesses that have plagued Perkins’ career; an inability to commit to tone, an aversion to narrative coherence, and a lack of control over the story’s emotional core. At its best, the film is a twisted, gory, and occasionally, hilarious exercise in chaos, but at its worst, it feels like a half-baked mess of ideas scrambling for an identity.
The film opens with a sequence that could have been plucked from the fever dreams of Quentin Tarantino or early Peter Jackson: Adam Scott, in a brief but memorable turn, attempts to offload the cursed simian at a pawn shop, resulting in a death scene that’s equal parts slapstick and splatter. It’s a tantalizing appetizer that the rest of the film struggles to match. Tatiana Maslany, as the twins’ mother, delivers lines with a refreshing frankness that cuts through the film’s murkier moments. Her quip about avoiding her son’s room since finding “that stiff sock” is a rare moment of unvarnished honesty in a genre often plagued by stilted parent-child dynamics. As the body count rises, along with the absurdity of the deaths, a drug-addled young pastor (played with scene-stealing gusto by Nicco Del Rio) serves as a Greek chorus of gallows humor. His irreverent sermons provide a welcome respite from the increasingly convoluted plot.
It’s hard to ignore the family dynamics that underpin The Monkey; particularly when considering Perkins’ own complicated relationship with his parents. The son of Hollywood icon Anthony Perkins (Psycho) and actress Berry Berenson, Perkins’ personal history is marked by tragedy, dysfunction, and a sense of inherited darkness. These familial themes are embedded in his films, often manifesting as destructive relationships that reflect his own turbulent upbringing. In The Monkey, we see this again, as the brothers’ relationship is steeped in rivalry, violence, and unresolved trauma. Yet the film offers moments of unexpected tenderness, such as a scene in which the boys’ mother, Lois, speaks frankly with them about death, before taking the absurd leap of encouraging her family to dance, “since we’re all going to die anyway.” It’s a striking moment, one that captures the film’s odd balance of humor and discomfort, as well as its occasional foray into earnestness.
Yet, despite these moments of lightness, the film falters when Perkins attempts to delve into more dramatic territory. The adult versions of Hal and Bill, played by Theo James (Divergent), become the focal point of the film’s second half, as the toy monkey’s curse returns, and Hal, now a father, must protect his son from the terror. Meanwhile, Bill remains the same vicious bully he was as a child. While these familial struggles might seem ripe for exploration, they ultimately feel misplaced. The shift toward drama undermines the film’s comic violence and the sharpness of its early absurdity, and the death scenes begin to feel increasingly out of place. As the stakes escalate, so too does the absurdity; until the deaths veer dangerously into Fast and Furious-like territory, where tone and story no longer align. The climax of the film, in particular, feels like an afterthought, hastily stitched together in a last-ditch effort to bring the film to a close.
The director seems torn between embracing the inherent camp of a killer toy story and pursuing weightier themes of familial strife and childhood trauma. The Monkey represents a step forward for Perkins, if only because it occasionally remembers that horror can, and should be fun. Yet, like its titular toy, the film is a contraption of disparate parts that never quite sync up to create a satisfying whole. It’s a cacophonous drum solo when what we crave is a tightly orchestrated symphony of scares. The Monkey is less a fully realized film and more a collection of promising moments; a smattering of blood-soaked set pieces and darkly comic dialogue that suggest Perkins might yet evolve into the filmmaker he aspires to be. For now, however, he remains an apprentice in the house of horror, fumbling with the tools bequeathed by masters like King, but still struggling to build something that stands on its own. It’s not that The Monkey is devoid of potential; it has flashes of brilliance, moments where the humor and the gore align in such a way that it feels like a commentary on the horror genre itself. The final moments of the film, a brief surprise, offer a winking acknowledgment of its absurdities. Yet even these moments can’t disguise the fact that Perkins’ film has, once again, faltered in its execution.
In the end, The Monkey is an uneven film, one that offers sporadic pleasures but never quite delivers on its promise. It represents a step forward for Perkins, but it also highlights the distance he still has to travel before he can truly claim a seat at the table of great horror filmmakers. At best, The Monkey is an amusing exercise in splatter and wit; at worst, it’s a failed attempt to build a story around its admittedly entertaining set pieces. Should you spank this monkey? Yes, you should always spank the monkey.
