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Thursday, December 19, 2024

‘The Monkey’ Images Preview Horror-Comedy Insanity of ‘Longlegs’ Director’s Next Movie

Fresh off this year’s box office hit Longlegs, director Osgood Perkins is headed into the world of Stephen King with The Monkey, a film adaptation of King’s same-titled short story.

From NEON and producer James Wan, The Monkey hits theaters February 21, 2025.

Entertainment Weekly scored a handful of first-look images from The Monkey this morning, while also offering up some insights from director Osgood Perkins and producer James Wan.

The piece describes The Monkey as a horror-comedy take on Stephen King’s tale, with Osgood Perkins’ pitch for the material leaning heavily into the humorous insanity of the premise.

He explains his initial pitch to EW, “What if it’s a comedy? Here’s this monkey that doesn’t do anything. It’s not M3GAN. It doesn’t attack. It’s evil just in its existence. Things happen around it for no better reason than they do. Its presence makes people die in insane ways.”

Perkins continues, “Everybody dies whether there’s a monkey or not. What if you could do this with a smile — process the fact that everybody dies? And what an insane, surrealist notion, dude! You will die; we’ll all die. That’s crazy shit. To do that as a comedy felt very apropos.”

The Monkey star Theo James describes the film as an R-rated family movie, one that’s “hyper dark, but also it has heart to it.” James adds, “and it’s really funny.”

Head over to Entertainment Weekly for more on The Monkey.

The Monkey is a short horror story that appeared in Skeleton Crew, a 1985 collection that also featured The Mist, The Jaunt, The Raft, Survivor Type, The Reach, and more.

Tatiana Maslany (She–Hulk: Attorney at Law), Elijah Wood (Maniac), Christian Convery (Sweet Tooth), Colin O’Brien (Wonka), Rohan Campbell (Halloween Ends) and Sarah Levy (Schitt’s Creek) also star in the next horror movie from Osgood Perkins.

“In The Monkey, when twin brothers Hal and Bill discover their father’s old monkey toy in the attic, a series of gruesome deaths starts occurring all around them. The brothers decide to throw the monkey away and move on with their lives, growing apart over the years.

“But when the mysterious deaths begin again, the brothers must reunite to find a way to destroy the monkey for good before it takes the lives of everyone close to them.”