Longlegs wasn't the directorial or writing debut of Osgood Perkins, but there's every chance that up until the 2024 horror sensation, you might have known him more as Dorky David from Legally Blonde.
The Blackcoat's Daughter, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House and Gretel & Hansel were known by horror fans, but never had the crossover appeal that Longlegs had last year.
That Longlegs managed to gross more than $125 million worldwide was a combination of a superb marketing campaign from US distributor Neon, flawless early critical acclaim and the presence of a genuine Hollywood star in Nicolas Cage. It was a true sleeper hit and proved so successful that it even had its own 'it's not that scary' backlash.
But that success comes at a price with The Monkey now acting, for some fans, as the 'difficult second album' for Perkins – even if it is his fifth movie as director. And while some might be disappointed to find The Monkey proves not quite as good as Longlegs, it's still a positive step forward for Perkins as a filmmaker.
The Monkey is an adaptation of the Stephen King short story of the same name, and there couldn't be a better fit for Perkins. All of his movies, in one way or another, have dealt with family trauma including, but not limited to, dark secrets from the past being resurfaced in the present.
Enter twin brothers Hal and Bill Shelburn (both Theo James, obviously). During their childhood, they found a wind-up toy monkey in their father's (Adam Scott) belongings after he abandoned them, which turns out to be anything other than a toy.
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The twins soon discover that every time the monkey finishes playing his drum (a change from the King short story as the cymbal-banging monkey had been used in Toy Story), a person dies in an outrageous way. Destroying it doesn't work, so they throw it in a well so it can't be used ever again.
But wouldn't you know it, 25 years later, the monkey comes back to begin another twisted murder spree. You might expect Longlegs-style dread here, yet Perkins leans into the absurdity so that despite the inherent creepiness of the monkey, you'll laugh at the gory deaths – if you are that way inclined.
And it's this aspect of The Monkey that bodes well for Perkins as a filmmaker. Longlegs built on the style and tone established in his previous movies albeit with a more accessible story, but The Monkey is a tonal switch-up and a genuine horror-comedy.
First reactions compared The Monkey to the Final Destination series, a comparison that's both accurate and also slightly misleading. There are some Rube Goldberg-ian deaths here, not least an incredible signpost kill and a gruesome harpoon opening death, but Perkins doesn't always stage elaborate sequences and prefers a bloody punctuation mark instead.
There's an inevitability to the deaths in Final Destination and an order; each victim has been marked and the joy is working out exactly how it'll happen. The Monkey is more about the random nature of death where, as the monkey's tagline "like life" says, anybody can go at any time and it can happen in an instant.
Long-time fans of Perkins will not be surprised at the filmmaker's fascination with the morbid truth of life that everybody dies and it could be at any time. His mother, Berry Berenson, was on American Airlines Flight 11 which was deliberately crashed into the North Tower during the September 11 attacks.
"When I was in the early stages of getting to know The Monkey... I realised, 'People die around the monkey in these insane ways. Oh – people died around me in these insane ways'," he told Vanity Fair.
It's an outlook that does lend a somewhat-nihilistic or mean-spirited nature to aspects of The Monkey which prevents it from fully succeeding. Whenever it threatens to explore the relationships between Hal and his estranged son or Hal and Bill, it's often undercut by a death that robs the movie of any depth.
Even though it expands on the short story, The Monkey still feels light plot-wise so it needed more investment in its characters to fully succeed. As it is though, it's an entertaining blood-soaked ride right through to its audacious finale where Perkins decides to go a bit weird.
It might not be this year's Longlegs (although maybe his other 2025 release Keeper will be that), but it does showcase that Osgood Perkins has other sides to him which can only help him be a force in the horror genre for years to come.
The Monkey is out now in cinemas.
Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
