Still // “The Monkey” (2025) via IMDb

MONKEYING AROUND. Honestly, I used this still in the hopes it would convince someone to watch the movie. Is it working?

By: Magnus Blanchard-Rockhill

Staff-Writer

This will contain spoilers for “The Monkey” (2025).

Another big hit for horror comedies this year already, and I am so happy to see it. “The Monkey” (2025) is a hilarious, gory and all-around fun adaptation of the short story by Stephen King.

King is notoriously critical of film adaptations of his work, but he worked with writer-director Osgood Perkins closely to bring this short story to life, and it shows. It may be obvious, unfortunately, but I had a huge Stephen King phase, and the dialogue and many of the character archetypes utilized here feel…comfortably familiar.

That said, the dialogue does get a little ridiculous even for me occasionally. Every single character talks as if they are physically incapable of keeping their internal thoughts from coming out immediately. This style of writing makes for great comedy, but sometimes it’s overdone.

Visually, this movie was fantastic. The set designs were so intricate, the costumes and makeup were striking and the lighting and color grading…like a comic book. A beautiful comic book. I almost feel spoiled. There’s even a really silly-looking kaleidoscopic dream sequence.

Speaking of visuals, the visual gags in this movie really elevated it from a pretty good horror comedy to one of my favorites. I don’t want to spoil a ton of them, but without getting into specifics, my favorite involved a box labelled “Bear Traps (set!!!)”

The special effects looked so good and made the gore feel pretty intense. This movie does not pull any punches, and it does not cut away. Juxtaposed against the comedy, it feels jarring in a way that only works to sell the comedy even more. It can be hard to balance those two aspects of the genre, but it was done here in a way that felt satisfying.

Now, the acting was pretty good. I do want to shout out Colin O’Brien, who did a fantastic job as Petey just trying his best to connect to his stupid deadbeat dad. Obviously, Theo James playing two different characters at the same time (which…I did not realize until the credits rolled) is impressive as well, but O’Brien managed to really sell the comedy for an objectively very sad character, which I respect.

This is a tiny bit of a spoiler for the ending, but this movie really feels like Final Destination if Death was actually Gob from Arrested Development. Which, if you do not see the vision, is actually a high compliment from me. Let me say now that the stupid horrible outfit birthed from the big reveal of the movie is one of my favorite costume choices I have ever seen. I laughed hard enough to cry in that theater. I actually did that a few times.

The message of this movie is something hard to swallow but important to internalize. It can come across nihilistic when done wrong, and even worse…corny. But personally, I think this is one of the better attempts at a comedy about death that I’ve seen. Everybody dies…Let’s go dancing!