Stephen King's latest horror offering has finally descended upon cinema screens, sending shivers down the spines of moviegoers. Adapted from one of King's more obscure short stories from the 1980s, the film is helmed by Osgood Perkins, the mastermind behind last year's spine-tingler, Longlegs. This time around, Perkins steers his audience through a wildly divergent yet equally hair-raising journey with The Monkey, a stark departure from the creeping dread of Longlegs.
Featuring Theo James, this frenzied horror-comedy revolves around a malevolent wind-up monkey toy that unleashes a relentless and blood-soaked spree of ingeniously entertaining demises. After inadvertently sparking a calamity with the accursed plaything, twins Hal and Bill Shelburn (portrayed by Christian Convery) pledge to leave their past behind. However, when accidents begin to plague him years later, an older Hal (James) becomes convinced that the sinister monkey is stalking him once more.
The film has garnered acclaim from horror enthusiasts, particularly for its wickedly grotesque series of kills attributed to the monkey. Empire magazine praised the film, stating: "The main sustenance is course after course of ketchup-covered set-pieces that recall Peter Jackson's Braindead or the last act of Lee Cronin's Evil Dead Rise in their gleeful nastiness, and the Final Destination movies in their Mousetrap-style, chain-of-calamity inventiveness. "Don't expect the true terror of Perkins' Longlegs or King's source s.
