I finally got to the theater to see The Monkey, which is surprisingly lively and enjoyable. Though it opened in February, it goes right on playing week after week, quietly making a lot of money while so many other films tank in a rotten year for movies so far. It’s become the first horror film hit of 2025.
Writer-director Osgood “Oz” Perkins had a sleeper hit with Longlegs late in 2024, and this is his fast and funny follow-up. Though The Monkey is really more of a gory dark comedy than a horror film, it’s based on horrormeister Stephen King’s 1980 short story “The Monkey” and bears some similarity to George A. Romero’s 1988 film, Monkey Shines.
Romero’s movie failed at the box office but is now regarded as something of a cult classic about an athlete named Allan who becomes a quadriplegic after an accident and relies on his service animal, a Capuchin monkey named Ella. But Ella is being treated with a serum derived from human brain tissue that both boosts her intelligence and radically increases her bond with Allan — and her dangerous possessiveness. Soon she’s anticipating his every wish, including fulfilling his unspoken rage and revenge fantasies, as well as eliminating perceived “rivals” for his love.
The human id, loaded with aggressive and forbidden impulses, is frequently represented by the monkey figure in Gothic horror, tales signifying a return to animal levels of primitive instincts that can’t readily be expressed in society. Though in the case of Monkey Shines, barbaric scientific experiments on an innocent monkey also represent the destructive capacities of human rationality that victimize Ella and spread mayhem everywhere. Soon Allan will have to find a way to conquer and kill Ella before she destroys everyone he knows.
The Monkey seems like a cousin to Monkey Shines, because the monkey in question has also formed a frighteningly intense…
Auteur: Eileen Jones
