(Updated 01/16/2024)
There's a huge fandom for horror movies from the 1980s, with their broad audience appeal and splashes of black comedy alongside the scares and gore. We see a lot more dark, slow-burn horror movies now — but one of the more notable directors of bleak modern horror is looking to change things up with his next movie.
Osgood Perkins became a genre superstar thanks to LONGLEGS. His new movie is THE MONKEY, an adaptation of a short story by the man who is perhaps the most recognizable face of 80s horror: Stephen King. And based on the latest trailer, the new movie from Perkins will fall more in line with the films that King might have seen as he was writing the original story. Here's everything you need to know about THE MONKEY.
What's The Monkey's Release Date?
NEON will release THE MONKEY in movie theaters on February 21, 2025.
Watch the New Trailer for The Monkey
"The monkey that likes killing our family… it's back." This trailer — which is bloody and vulgar, be warned — doesn't waste any time telling us that THE MONKEY is meant to be as funny as it is gory. While it only kind of explains the story and what the monkey itself is all about — we'll get into more detail about that below — illustrating that combo of blood-red horror and weird comedy is much more important.
What Is The Monkey About?
The original story, at least, is about twin brothers, Hal and Bill. As boys, they find one of their father's old toys in the family attic. But this toy — a mechanized monkey that claps its cymbal-holding hands when activated — seems to cause death every time it is activated. As adults, the brothers are haunted by the monkey once again, and seek to destroy its power.
That seems to be more or less the story for the movie, too. (You'll notice that for the movie, the Monkey still has a percussive nature, but that it plays a small drum rather than beating cymbals together.)
The Monkey Might Be the Bloodiest Movie of 2025
Sure, it's early in the year, but this movie is set to be seriously gory. "If you’re going for comedy then you’re going for extremes. Not subtlety," Perkins told Empire. "We are guilty of putting far more blood in our human bodies than is really in a human body. When someone explodes in this movie — and a couple of people do — there’s a lot of mess."
But there is an undercurrent of real thought behind all that mess. Last year, Perkins told Vulture, "That everybody, including yourself, dies is such an absurd thing. Even for people like me, who’ve been through death plenty, the notion that we all die is still f-cking nuts. But what are you going to do about it? Not get out of bed?"
The Monkey Is Based on a Short Story From 1980
The story "The Monkey" is best known for being part of Stephen King's 1985 short story collection "Skeleton Crew," with the windup toy that gives the tale its name also appearing on the book's cover. But "The Monkey" was originally published in 1980, making it more contemporary to King's first wave of classic horror novels. The "Skeleton Crew" version is heavily revised from the original published version.
And King did another revision of the story, in a way, for the script of the "X-Files" episode called "Chinga," broadcast in 1998. That episode isn't a one-to-one adaptation of "The Monkey" but the similarities are far too numerous to seem like anything other than King mining his own material for inspiration.
Who's in the Cast of The Monkey?
Theo James plays twin brothers Hal and Bill as adults, while Christian Convery plays the twins as children. The movie also features Tatiana Maslany, Elijah Wood, Colin O'Brien, Rohan Campbell, and Sarah Levy.
Director Osgood Perkins will appear in a role, as well. And his daughter, Beatrix Perkins, who has had small roles in many of her father's projects (she played the unflappable store clerk in LONGLEGS) will have a part, too.
THE MONKEY opens on February 21.
All images courtesy of NEON.