The Monkey (2025) Movie Review

0:11 welcome everyone to the concession stand here on the kb radio network i am your host kevin reed and this is the review of the new horror comedy the

0:23 monkey which is based on a 1980 short story by the great stephen king this film is an adaptation

0:32 of that short story written and directed by Osgood Perkins and it stars Theo James,

0:38 Tatiana

0:40 Maslany, and Rohan

0:43 Campbell. This film follows twin brothers whose lives are turned upside down by a cursed toy monkey that caused random horrifying deaths.

0:56 This film was highly anticipated.

0:59 I was

1:00 Super excited coming off the heels of Long Legs from last year,

1:05 which was written and directed by Osgood Perkins.

1:08 And I was intrigued to see how he was going to approach a Stephen King story here.

1:15 Going off of the marketing material,

1:17 it looked like it was going to have that dark tone that we saw in Long Legs,

1:22 yet have a twisted sense of humor that

1:27 Long Legs didn't possess.

1:30 it's at all uh long legs was very very very uh stoic you know it was a straightforward film but this film promised more comedy and i'm here for that i love a good horror comedy and

1:46 that's a different approach when we look at stephen keane adaptations in the past you know trying to take it too serious and now uh kind of poke fun at yourself here it you

1:59 that was a different approach that i was looking forward to uh stephen king adaptations in the past it you think back through the annals of history all of the stephen king films

2:15 that came to be you know adaptations from his works they haven't been real good you can probably count on i'm gonna say two hands and there's a lot of stephen king adaptations so

2:28 two hands is not a lot i don't think you get a full two hands of good stephen king adaptations you know very few and far between and so looking at it out of that lens it's

2:43 not surprising that the monkey just didn't land it was it wasn't good to put it plainly this was not good uh

2:56 this movie relied heavily on gore on the quote-unquote shock kills which nothing was shocking about it because uh most of the kills you saw in the trailers you know you didn't see the full outcome

3:12 of the kills you know in all of his bloody glory but uh you knew what was happening in the trailer and that's not to say that the trailer ruined it i don't think

3:25 it still would have helped this film uh not going into it blind it was this movie was a bad final destination adaptation or installment in that franchise this this was just a bad version of

3:42 final destination in my humble opinion it it the kills were so outlandish i mean just over the top every kill nothing

3:54 And they classified,

3:56 you know,

3:56 in the movie,

3:58 the authorities classified them as random.

4:01 But nothing was random about these killings or these deaths,

4:07 I should say.

4:08 Because it wasn't technically a murder or killings.

4:12 It was just these random events.

4:14 And they were so far-fetched out of the realm of possibility.

4:19 They just found different ways to kill people.

4:23 And that was pretty much the selling point on this movie.

4:27 You know,

4:28 let's find a new way to kill this person.

4:30 Oh,

4:30 let's do it like this.

4:31 Let's just look.

4:33 Let's use a harpoon that retracts.

4:37 OK,

4:37 let's use,

4:40 you know,

4:41 let's let's use a for sale sign in your front yard to decapitate somebody.

4:47 All right,

4:47 let's do that.

4:48 You know,

4:49 it was just random stuff.

4:52 And.

4:52 it could have worked if the story was tight and there was no tight story here i was good

5:00 Perkins who in case you don't know he's the son of Anthony Perkins and if you don't know who Anthony Perkins is he's Norman he's Norman Bates yes from Psycho the actor who portrayed Norman Bates uh

5:15 this is uh his son oh who is

5:19 I guess carrying on the mantle in the horror genre and

5:23 Long Legs was such a good film such a good film it had its problems but I

5:29 I thought it was a breath of fresh air in the horror genre.

5:34 I don't know what was going on in this movie.

5:37 This was just bad all around.

5:39 The writing was bad.

5:41 The comedy didn't land.

5:43 I didn't laugh but one time in this entire film.

5:47 Once.

5:47 And it was the very last shot of the movie.

5:51 I'm not going to spoil it,

5:52 you know,

5:53 in case you want to go see it.

5:55 But whenever you see it.

5:56 Or if you have seen it,

5:58 you know what I'm talking about.

6:00 It was the very last shot of the movie.

6:03 I laughed.

6:04 I mean,

6:05 just outburst.

6:08 It was like a hearty laugh,

6:10 stomach laugh.

6:12 And

6:14 I'm like,

6:14 man,

6:15 why the rest of the movie couldn't be like this?

6:18 Why did they wait to the very end to make me laugh?

6:21 Because nothing else in this film was funny,

6:25 even though it was.

6:26 trying to be and that was one of the reasons why it wasn't it was trying to be funny instead of organically being funny and it didn't land the dialogue was bad the story was just clunky

6:43 uh the one thing the one thing to go to this movie for is theo james the lead here he's he's playing dual roles here as uh identical twin brothers you

6:55 he did an excellent job i enjoyed him in this film he now he was unintentionally funny you know uh in between the lines and you know the little moments in between where it

7:11 was his facial expressions or his reactions to what's going on that was kind of humorous but it took too long to get to him for one because we had to get the origin story which was fine

7:24 and to be honest with you the first

7:27 15 minutes of the film was interesting it had me kind of hooked in i was like okay i like where this is heading you know uh it can only get better from here you know that's what my mind was it wasn't horrible you know i was willing to tolerate it but

7:44 after that after the opening act i would say the the the whole first act of the film

7:53 it just went downhill from there and once we get get that flash forward into time where we are in present time i suppose it really just went off the rails that's when all of the randomness started taking place all of the these just deaths just popping up all over the place in this one pacific town it

8:15 was like three to four deaths a day just just crazy random deaths a day and

8:22 the locals are like oh it happens you know it was just silly and they got so ridiculous that we didn't even see all this you know we're being told this that's how that's how unaspiring this screenplay was it

8:41 it was it was just a waste of time and it just felt like a waste of time then we get to the end of the movie to the final climax of the movie something happened in the final

8:51 climax involving this toy monkey that was really interesting that was really cool but it was never explained it was never set up it just happened and that was it that was that

9:07 was it you know they didn't address it it wasn't any uh dread over it you know it wasn't any panic over it it was like okay well it's the monkey and and

9:20 everybody went off about their day it was a extinction level event that took place and nobody blinked it was like well the dumb you know the monkey do what the monkey do you know it it was so passe

9:37 and i'm like no man we need to address this but no no it was nothing addressed it was just i don't know this was very frustrating you

9:48 I was so disappointed with this film.

9:50 I had a lot.

9:51 I had some high hopes about this movie.

9:53 I wasn't expecting the greatest horror film of all time,

9:57 but I was expecting,

9:59 you know.

10:01 a

10:01 90 minute turn your brain off horror film you know that's easy well i say easy but you know what i'm saying that's that's that pops up all the time we just saw one uh in heart eyes just a random little horror film that was good you know it wasn't great by no stretch of the imagination but it was entertaining this

10:22 movie failed to entertain it failed to inspire it failed to even you know

10:29 gross you out or scare you or even creep you out the monkey is creepy looking but other than that there's nothing about this that screams horror that this just it was just random deaths happening all around and voila that was that's that that's the movie you you

10:46 seen the trailer you seen the movie you know what it is but yeah this this was not a good showing from osgood perkins and and james wan james wan produced this movie you

10:58 James Wan,

10:59 the great,

11:01 the horror icon,

11:02 James Wan.

11:04 You had Stephen King,

11:05 James Wan,

11:06 and Osgood Perkins coming together to make a movie and splat,

11:14 splat.

11:15 It was horrible,

11:16 man.

11:17 I can't begin to express my feelings.

11:20 It's hard to put them in words,

11:21 really.

11:22 I'm just very disappointed with this movie.

11:26 I'm not gonna throw the baby out with the bathwater.

11:28 I still have a lot of hope in Osgood Perkins because I think he's a fairly good director.

11:36 Long Legs was a really good film.

11:40 You can't just luck up and make a movie of that quality.

11:44 There's some talent involved in making a film like that.

11:47 And so I'm not going to throw him out with the bathwater because this movie didn't land.

11:53 I'm just hoping and praying that...

11:56 his next go around his next film can bounce back from this but in the meantime the monkey which is currently in theaters gets a lot of grade of a d plus yeah yeah yeah

12:11 it hurt my heart then this movie really hurt my heart boy i had a lot of high hopes for it maybe that's my fault maybe i maybe i put too much expectation on this film i don't know but

12:25 regardless it it was a pool fest but i would love to know what did you think of the monkey did you go check it out or are you waiting around to see it pop up on streaming somewhere in a couple of weeks or whatever because i i can pretty much guarantee it'll

12:42 it'll be on demand in a few weeks this was it's it it'll probably play better than if i watch it again once it comes on one of these screaming services or something

12:55 Later on this year,

12:57 I will probably appreciate it more.

12:59 But this did not belong in the theater.

13:03 Nah.

13:04 Nah.

13:05 But I would love to know your thoughts.

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13:39 Network. Everybody,

13:40 thank you for joining me for this review of the monkey.

13:45 I want you all to know that I love you.

13:47 Continue to love everyone,

13:49 and until we speak again,

13:51 you all be blessed.