You Are Now Entering The Monkey Zone

At the start of 2025, I made a resolution to watch a movie in theatres once per week. In the throws of Oscar season, this was easy to do. From A Complete Unknown to The Brutalist, there was always something exciting to watch. Now, with the award season over and summer blockbusters still a few months away, the theatres are in a lull. Why visit the theatre to watch something I don't care about, when I can stay comfortably at home and watch reruns of The Twilight Zone? My resolution has become less of a joy and more of a chore.

Take last week, for example. There were no movies playing that I really wanted to see. The best option I could find was The Monkey. It sounded as exciting as a visit to the dentist.

Why didn't I want to see The Monkey? As a Stephen King fan, I usually like to watch his adaptations. The Shining, Shawshank Redemption, Stand By Me are just some of the classics that are adapted from King stories. Still, I had my doubts that this master of horror could make a toy monkey scary. Plus, the movie's director, Osgood Perkins, disappointed me with his last feature, Longlegs. Despite Nic Cage's wild performance, Longlegs left me wanting more. The Monkey also has James Wan, the creator of the Saw series, attached as a producer. His involvement made me think that The Monkey would be deranged, but that still wasn't enough to sell me on seeing this movie—let alone in the theatre.

But momma didn't raise no quitter. With no real competition and a streak I wasn't willing to break, The Monkey had me. My friend agreed to go (before he bailed, claiming "sickness") and I was prepared, for better or worse, to sit in the theatre for another Perkins movie.

And this, my friends, is why it's so wonderful to see movies in the cinema. It's like magic, when a movie that you have zero expectations for captures you in the first few minutes and grips you until the final credits roll. Forcing myself to go out and watch a movie with a boring title and an unexciting premise turned into the best theatre experience I've had since I watched Lisa Frankenstein last year.

The Monkey won me over in a number of ways, the biggest of which was that it did not take itself seriously at all. Despite being labelled a horror, it is actually much more of a comedy. Albeit a gruesome, dark-as-night comedy, but a comedy none the less. Everything is treated lightly, from death to generational trauma. The story does not try anything ambitious, like connecting the monkey to the political and economic state of the world. Instead, Perkins is happy to tell the story as it is: A supernatural toy monkey that, when you turn its key, causes somebody to die a horrible death.

With that as the central plot, it was essential for Perkins to nail the death scenes. Luckily for all of us, The Monkey is loaded with violent, hilarious and grotesque ways to give up the ghost. The first to croak is a shopkeeper at an antiques store, who takes a harpoon to his gut, which then recoils and takes the man's intestines with it. I could go on and explain every death in gory detail, but it's better that you trust me when I say that they're brutal and memorable. The shocking creativity of these deaths is what gives The Monkey some of its charm.

But it's not the only thing. There is also Theo James. Despite being well known for his roles in The White Lotus and the Divergent franchise, this was my first time watching the actor. He pulls double duty in The Monkey, playing adult twin brothers Hal and Bill Shelburn. One is trying to live a normal life after a traumatic childhood, while the other is obsessed with the power of the monkey. I think you can guess which one is the hero and which one is the villain. James was brilliant in both roles, playing the down-on-his-luck father with a dejected, fed-up attitude that was relatable and sympathetic. The other twin, Bill, was played with a deranged sense of self-importance that reminded me of Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver. Considering James's British nationality, ridiculously handsome face and strong build, I could see him as an ideal candidate for the next James Bond—but I digress.

There are two distinct parts to The Monkey—when the twins are young boys and when they are adults. During the first part, the adult Hal Shelburn provides voiceover narration for his childhood escapades. With James's deep, slightly raspy, slick-cool voice, I couldn't help but feel that the narration was inspired by The Twilight Zone. Anyone familiar with this infamous show from the 1960s knows that its episodes are narrated by Rod Serling, the show's creator and a smooth-voiced savant. This hard-smoking, poetic narrator was essential to The Twilight Zone, and The Monkey's inclusion of voiceover narration made me consider the parallels between this classic show and the new movie. Although Twilight Zone episodes usually dealt with more cerebral horror and suspense, I can't deny that The Monkey would still fit perfectly into The Twilight Zone world. Blood and gore were never the show's forte, but the premise of an indestructible evil toy that can teleport is quintessential Twilight Zone. The show is even credited for having one of the first killer-toy plots. The season 5 episode, "Living Doll," focuses on a talking doll that won't leave a man alone—even going as far as causing his death. This is not too far off from the premise of The Monkey.

I realized that what bugged me most about Perkins's last project, Longlegs, was its story. As screenwriter and director, Perkins went for a more suspenseful feeling, blending hard-boiled noir with horror. The result had some highlights but also had janky pacing. Audience reactions in the theatre were rather muted, with lacklustre tension and only a few scenes that received audible reactions. Although Perkins also wrote The Monkey, it is an adaptation and not an original concept. With the strong source material from King, Perkins could focus on his vision and his directing, which allowed him to have a lot more fun. In this case, when the director is having fun, the audience has fun too.

Theatrical runs are so short for most movies nowadays that it feels silly to recommend that you see The Monkey in theatres. I'll bet by the time you read this it will probably already be out on streaming. But, if you do get the chance to see The Monkey in theatres, I would say you should jump at it. No, it's not an intricate story or a visual spectacle, but it is a lot of fun and its gruesomeness is ideal for watching with a crowd.

Despite my low expectations, watching The Monkey with a quarter-full audience was a memorable theatre-going experience. When a movie is this silly and bloody, it's so much better to watch with a group—either of friends or of strangers. Hearing how others laugh and react to gruesome deaths was half of the fun of watching The Monkey. I loved hearing people audibly squirm in the first few minutes when that shopkeeper's intestines were pulled out on the screen, or the groans of disgust when the human remains of a guy trampled by horses were discovered (it's more of a stew than a body). If you watch The Monkey alone and plan to analyze it like it's an Oscar contender, I'm afraid that you will be disappointed. But if you watch it with a group of friends or, better yet, in a theatre of strangers, you and everyone watching will have a ball.