Before last summer, Osgood Perkins’ was known as the auteur of chilling slow-burn horrors who gathered a limited but fairly loyal fanbase. Being the son of horror legend, Norman Bates himself, Perkins’ name was immediately synonymous with horror cinema history. Still, his pre-2024 works such as the boarding school-set psychological terrorizer, The Blackcoat’s Daughter, the dark fairytale twist, Gretel & Hansel, or the supernatural gothic I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House didn’t entice a huge audience. That all changed with 2024’s Longlegs, one of the best horror movies of the 2020s so far, displaying Perkins’ storytelling capabilities and unrelenting style in vivid, ‘90s-tainted terror. It has announced Perkins as one of the pre-eminent horror filmmakers working today. Following up by just a few months, Perkins has collaborated with the King of the Horror Box Office, James Wan, for an adaptation of a short story by the King of Horror in general, Stephen King.
The Monkey really does feel like Longlegs with a dash of James Wan in it. It’s definitely more glossy and crowd-pleasing than Perkins’ last movie — even while Longlegs was a smash with audiences and critics — going for bigger kill sequences, gore moments, and a central titular villain who’s not as vocal as an unhinged Nicolas Cage. The best step-up in The Monkey from Longlegs is how packed it is with Perkins’ dark humor, with several laugh-out-loud moments. And some of these come the kills themselves. The Monkey feels like a nod to Quentin Tarantino in how bombastic the kills are and how humor — both unintentionally and intentionally — makes a disconcerting but fun pairing with them. It gets lost in its own madness in the second half, trying to cram in some hefty meditations on family and generations that bog down the fun vibes Perkins was aiming for until then. Still, Perkins has given his own brand of Tarantinoism while basically crafting an elevated Final Destination story. What more could you want?
‘The Monkey’ Follows a Final Destination Formula
The Monkey, like all great horror movies, has a sick opening scene. A desperate father (a very fun cameo made better if you don’t know it’s coming) is trying to get rid of a creepy-looking toy monkey, and you can tell from the blood on his shirt that it’s a matter of life and death. The pawn shop owner won’t accept it, but after the monkey gets cranked up, and he starts beating his toy drum, we know from the father’s reaction that something horrific is about to happen. What ensues is a kill scene that would make the 2000s Splat Pack of directors proud, and it becomes clear what the monkey’s powers are.
Some time later, the father has abandoned his family due to his inability to destroy the monkey. This leaves his son, Hal, an introverted, awkward young teen, subjected to the constant wrath of his obnoxious, dominant identical twin brother, Bill. When they discover the monkey among their father’s abandoned things, soon enough, “freak accidents” start claiming the lives of those closest to them, forever changing the course of the boys’ lives. We then jump 25 years. The now-adult Hal (Theo James) has led a life of self-imposed solitude out of fear of the monkey’s return. However, he did manage to have a son, Petey (Colin O’Brien), who is now a teenager and is becoming increasingly curious about his paternal family. When another freak accident claims the life of a family member, Hal knows that his greatest nightmare has returned. The monkey couldn’t be destroyed then, and it’s back to randomly claim more lives, which could include Hal’s son. Family secrets, years of pain, and more death force Hal to reckon with the curse that has attached itself to his family, and get back in contact with Bill, who is even less adjusted to adult life.
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The Monkey, for the most part, plays like a grittier and more elevated Final Destination movie. Except, instead of the villain being the invisible but unstoppable force of death itself, it’s a creepy ass toy monkey. It’s a refreshing twist on the cursed, murderous object trope — one that’s rarely scary. If you’re going to animate it to come alive like Chucky, it’s usually more campy than it is threatening. And when it’s simply an inanimate object related to a demon, like in the Annabelle movies, it feels redundant in the grand scheme of the story. The Monkey ensures its titular villain has a great deal of narrative purpose, while also injecting the random factor in that we know a kill is coming when the monkey beats its drum, but the fun (and horror) lies in the build-up to who will die and how. Again, it’s extremely similar to the basic concept of Final Destination, but the Perkins-isms throughout make it miles better than any entry in the franchise.
‘The Monkey’ Strikes a Great Mix of Gore and Comedy
What you may find surprising when you’re watching The Monkey, especially after the grim, bleak tone of Longlegs, is that Perkins is constantly giving you reasons to laugh. A young Bill mouthing a dramatic “FUCK” at the funeral of an ill-fated victim, a character running through their house with their head on fire only to suffer an even worse fate than burning alive, and genius editing and scene-cut timings from Graham Fortin and Greg Ng bring the best brand of dark humor as it never detracts from the disturbing visuals that Perkins doesn’t relent on showing us. An appearance from the writer-director himself as a deadbeat uncle who knows how to have a good time calls back to Perkins’ hilarious work as the orphan-deworming David in Legally Blonde.
The Monkey is a horror movie to enjoy in the purest way. Perkins is unrelenting in his gore while still ensuring there’s a consistent, nestling atmosphere of dread that he always executes exceptionally. There’s common ground between The Monkey and Longlegs in that both their stories surround core ideas of how childhood trauma can always come back to haunt us in our adult lives. But, in the second half, as Hal races against the beat of the monkey’s drum to save his son, Perkins’ script doesn’t feel as sharp as his previous movie. The logic behind the toy’s powers becomes increasingly convoluted, and the progressively heavy themes coming to the forefront don’t fit in with the movie’s absurdist tone. The story may not be as strong as Longlegs’ but you’re sure to have a great deal of fun with The Monkey, and it’s prime evidence that Perkins is one of the rare horror directors who can strike a sublime balance between comedy, suspense, and the type of gore and nastiness that has been missing from mainstream horror for years.
Theo James Plays Two Wildly Different Twin Brothers
Theo James is something of an it man of the moment. After widely acclaimed performances as an obnoxious American tourist in The White Lotus and a London gangster in Guy Richie’s The Gentlemen series, James is one of Hollywood’s go-to stars, be it for loveable villains or brooding criminals. Playing two wildly different characters in The Monkey, James does a magnificent job of disappearing into both personas. As Hal, he’s a loner by choice, caught in a gutwrenching conflict between protecting his son and being a present father. The relationship between Hal and his son is the beating heart when the story gets a bit too silly, weighing down those familial themes that lie at the core of Perkins’s script. As an adult Hal, he gets to revel in the more comedic moments of the movie, calling back to The White Lotus’ Cam as an idiotic douchebag who wants to watch the world burn in his own ways. James’ outrageously good looks and chiseled face can sometimes take you out of the story, especially since he’s meant to play an isolated loser in nowhere America, but it’s still an interesting dual role for James to take on that serves to put the actor’s versatility on full display.
If you’re the type of person who laughs at the over-the-top violence in Django Unchained, or revels in the physics-defying deaths of the Final Destination franchise, there is a great deal to love in The Monkey. It may not feel as polished or suspenseful as Longlegs, but you can tell Perkins is having a whale of a time putting his years of horror filmmaking to the maximum. While there’s certainly more studio gloss by way of James Wan’s involvement, it’s a credit to Perkins’ style that he can inject so much spectacle fun into the same dank grim aesthetic he employed in his last film. In a way, Longlegs is the Hal of Perkins’ film offspring, the foreboding loner forced into a moody existence of believing horror lies behind every corner, while The Monkey is Perkins’ Bill, the loud obnoxious blowhard who’s a little less refined but just as, if not more entertaining.
The Monkey bangs into theaters on February 21.

The Monkey
Osgood Perkins delivers a gory, hilarious, and wildly entertaining horror ride that may not be as refined as Longlegs but it’s even more fun.
- Release Date
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February 19, 2025
- Runtime
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98 Minutes
- Writers
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Osgood Perkins
- Producers
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John Rickard, Natalia Safran, Ali Jazayeri, Chris Ferguson, Fred Berger, Giuliana Bertuzzi, James Wan, Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, John Friedberg, Jason Cloth, David Gendron, Michael Clear, Jesse Savath, Peter Luo, Dave Caplan
- Perkins goes hard on the gore and crafts some brilliantly creative kill sequences.
- The humor of the movie is a major highlight as it never takes away from the horror or gore.
- Theo James is able to differentiate the twins with two unique performances.
- The movie’s second half gets lost in itself, with much of the lore becoming convoluted.
- Perkins’ script doesn’t execute its themes as well as it could have.
- As a loner like Hal, James’ extraordinary good looks can sometimes take you out of the movie.