Review: The Monkey (2025)

Early in 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘰𝘯𝘬𝘦𝘺 (2025), as a crowd of tearful mourners watches in silence, a priest takes his place at the front of the congregation to eulogize a recently deceased mother of two. Instead of launching into a rousing sermon, however, the bearded twenty-something hems and haws at the lectern before nervously breathing an obscenity into the microphone. What follows, in a scene that director Osgood Perkins clearly thought would have moviegoers doubled over in laughter, is one of the most desperately-trying-to-be-funny-but-not-funny-at-all monologues that I’ve sat through in a movie theater in quite some time, and it was all downhill from there for 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘰𝘯𝘬𝘦𝘺. To be honest, it seems like Perkins never really knew what kind of movie that he wanted to make—a horror film with shades of comedy like 𝘚𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮 (1996) or a comedy film with shades of horror like 𝘚𝘩𝘢𝘶𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘋𝘦𝘢𝘥 (2004). And so he ripped off 𝘋𝘳𝘢𝘨 𝘔𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘏𝘦𝘭𝘭 (2009), a superior film to 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘰𝘯𝘬𝘦𝘺 in almost every way and one that does a much better job of combining comedy and horror in a compelling, curse-based narrative. Oh, and the jokes in 𝘋𝘳𝘢𝘨 𝘔𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘏𝘦𝘭𝘭 actually land, unlike those in 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘰𝘯𝘬𝘦𝘺. The sad thing is that there was a great horror movie to be made from this premise. Unfortunately, by not monkeying around enough in the writer’s room (which results in multiple glaring plot holes) and stuffing his film with ham-fisted attempts at comedy, Osgood Perkins created a film that just doesn’t work beyond the beer can-strewn corridors of a frat house. With names like Stephen King and James Wan attached to this film, I guess I was expecting something better.