A Review of The Monkey. Once in a while, a horror movie turns…

Once in a while, a horror movie turns into something you’d almost call a dark sermon — clotted with carnage, but still lit by storytelling craft. The Monkey is one of those. Adapted from Stephen King’s 1980 short story, this new film by Osgood Perkins takes the base concept — a demonic wind-up monkey toy that spells death when it plays — and stretches it into a modern grotesque fable. The result is messy, loud, and often inspired, exactly the sort of ride King fans will either hate or love. I fall on the “love” side.

From King’s germ to Perkins’ body

King’s original is lean, ominous, whisper-in-the-dark terror: you wind the key, the drums play, somebody dies. He doesn’t waste words. The horror is the idea, the implication. Perkins and screenwriter Perkins borrow that skeleton, but drape muscle and skin over it: new scenes, expanded characters, even a second generation. In doing so, the film ceases to be mere extension and becomes its own beast.

What’s borrowed from King is the cruel inevitability, the punctuation of random death beneath the façade of innocence. What The Monkey adds is theatricality — scenes of gore and absurd machinery of death that King might only hint at. In short, the film borrows King’s moral germ, but lets the camera swagger in.

Language, voice, and character guts