The Monkey (2025) Review: Unabashedly Grotesque

With his latest feature, The Monkey, Oz Perkins tackles the multitude of ways grief manifests through a deliciously gory dark comedy.

In truth, the conversation surrounding the two films should not be one of “which is better”, but rather how Perkins has managed to make a complete 180 between these two movies that he shot in succession to one another. Where Longlegs is an eerie, unsettling religious thriller, The Monkey is a vibrant, lively slapstick horror film. But don’t be fooled; The Monkey may not match Longlegs in tone but it does pack more of a profound punch. 

The Monkey opens in 1999 with young, fatherless twin brothers Hal and Bill, both played by Christian Convery (Mom). Hal and Bill are raised by their mother Lois (Tatiana Maslany, of She-Hulk) while their father (Adam Scott, of Severance) has always been an absent yet omnipresent figure in their lives. He was a pilot who would accrue obscure souvenirs in his travels for Hal and Bill. While they never had their father in their lives, their home was stocked full of these interesting yet ultimately useless gifts from him. 

One day, when Hal and Bill are going through these gifts from their father, they stumble on a wind-up-monkey that, when activated, raises its arms and bangs on a tiny drum with tiny drumsticks. The monkey has a sticker on the back of the box it was stored in, daring users to turn the key and see what happens. Hal urges Bill to not turn the key, causing Bill to do it immediately out of spite. Later that night the boys experience a devastating and horrific loss which they immediately link to the monkey. 

The presence of the monkey and Hal’s particular obsession with it highlights the animosity between the two boys. Bill hates Hal, and Hal loves Bill despite his horrible behavior towards him. When Hal is finally pushed too far from the consequences of Bill’s actions, he turns the monkey’s key and begs for it to take Bill’s life. However, the monkey is labeled “like life,” meaning it takes no requests and chooses its victims at random, which results in a loss of the relationship between Hal and Bill cannot stand. Their one final act as brothers is to dispose of the monkey. 

In the present day, the brothers are completely estranged. Hal (Theo James, of The Gentlemen) has become a father, but the trauma caused by the inheritance of the monkey has made him keep everyone in his life at arm’s length. During the one week a year Hal spends with his son Petey (Colin O’Brien, of Wonka,) he gets news of a number of gruesome and random deaths that have happened in the town he and Bill (also played by Theo James) grew up in and knows the monkey has somehow returned. Wanting to protect his son’s life, he seeks to find his brother in order to destroy this vehicle of horror once and for all. 

While audiences will be buying tickets to see if this film really is as grotesque as others have boasted it to be, the carnage is only a small part of what makes the movie work so well. The Monkey, through all its gore and bloodshed, shines a light on the violent ways grief manifests when unaddressed and the way it can completely alter people experiencing it. Additionally, it’s a joyously convoluted and brilliantly indirect commentary on the impact of absent fathers. 

The Monkey, while shrouded in death, bubbles with life. Hal and Bill have had very adverse reactions to the amount of death they have witnessed in their lives. Bill becomes obsessed with death and the lives the monkey has taken from him. While he has always put up a tough exterior, the loss he suffers because of the monkey leaves him unable to deal with his overwhelming sense of grief. Instead of trying to process the losses in his life, he lets it consume his very being.

On the other hand, Hal becomes obsessed with life. He closes himself off to love, connection and even family in order to ensure no one’s death will be because of his connection to the monkey. He’s unable to connect with Petey in a meaningful way because he wants to protect him so badly. It’s ironic that he becomes so obsessed with keeping the people he has loved alive because it completely destroys his ability to live life himself. 

While we don’t get a lot of background on the twin’s father, from what the audience is told we see Hal over time has turned into his father. He’s abandoned his own child believing it would keep him safe. Even though Hal has been in his son’s shoes before, he forgets how lonely the feeling of having an absent father can be. Like his own father, Hal never sat Petey down to explain himself so Petey is left to believe his father is just not interested in him. 

Through trying to keep Petey safe, Hal has begun to understand his father in a way he was never able to as a child. In the observation of their relationship, The Monkey becomes a film about the horrors and trauma we pass on to our children and the ways in which we try to protect them from it. Hal sees his past as too traumatic and the inevitable resurgence of this monkey as a threat to the life of his child and therefore refuses to be in his life because of it. In a convoluted way, it’s a story about the fear of being a father when you never had an example of how to be one. 

The Monkey is a truly impressive feat. Perkins has managed to make a story that is genuinely fun to watch, making commentary within the film that shows audiences he knows they are here to cheer on the gore, while still creating an impactful conversation about fatherhood and grief. His ability to play with horror in such different arenas makes it seemingly impossible to predict his next move. Whatever it is though, I will be seated. 

The Monkey will be released in US theatres, in UK & Irish cinemas and globally in theaters on February 21, 2025.