The Monkey: The Perfect Terrible Movie

By Ilana van der Merwe, April 2 2025—

Based on a Stephen King short story of the same name, Oz Perkins’ The Monkey hit theaters in February 2025. Many of King’s novels have made it to the big screen, admittedly with varying success. With films like Kubrick’s The Shining, Muschietti’s It and Darabont’s The Green Mile setting cinematic precedents for the Horror genre, it can be difficult for other Stephen King films to stand out. The Monkey undeniably stood out, although critics say for the worst. For this reason, I argue that it was one of my favourite terrible movies.

Stephen King’s “The Monkey”, printed most commonly in King’s short narratives collection Skeleton Crew, has been a reader favourite since its release in the 1980s. The story follows a father, Hal Shelburn, as he is faced with a resurfaced terror from his past: a toy monkey with the supernatural ability to kill. With the turn of a toy key, the monkey claps its symbols, causing someone close to Hall to die in gruesome ways. When Hal finds his son, Petey, playing with the toy Hal realizes his struggle with this entity is far from over. After numerous attempts to dispose of the cursed monkey, King finds an ominous and open-ended conclusion to this story — a party trick of King’s.  

This short story is satirical in its approach to the ‘fighting past demons’ trope, but timeless for this reason. Similar to many of King’s work, this story is intended to be far more sardonic than it is to be frightening. The characters are not necessarily exceedingly complex and the world building is not exceptionally colourful, but King executes a highly entertaining short read regardless. There is potential for this short to be interpreted for its metaphorical ties to intergenerational trauma as well as the terror of confrontation. I found the dialogue in this story to feel surprisingly realistics and that even references to the media of the time still hold up. The literary devices used to flesh out the supernatural effects of this monkey are spooky, but may be considered occasionally redundant to avid King readers. I would recommend this short story as a bus-ride or camp-fire read. It is something fun to distract you from everyday stressors, but not something to sink your teeth into. Retelling this story around a campfire with friends may serve to be more rewarding than reading it for yourself. 

After reading it, I was increasingly skeptical of how Perkins would make this tale his own. To my surprise, Perkins turned The Monkey into a completely reimagined work. Transforming the short story into a screenplay, Perkins made a classic horror tale into something raunchy, ridiculous and — for that exact reason — robustly entertaining. Pulling from the inherent cliche that comes with a killer toy, Perkins used several horror tropes to subvert audience expectation in increasingly erratic ways. 

From deliberately inaccurate special effects to eye-rolling one liners, Perkins’ spin on a B-movie was incredibly enjoyable. Like the short story, this movie transports its audience. By forcing viewers to question if ‘cringe-worthy’ directorial decisions were deliberately made to poke fun at the genre, or its overly critical viewers. Perkins expands on King’s original universe, casting well known actors like Theo James and Elijah Wood into colorful characters new to the original story. These actors were on par with Perkin’s repetitive use of deliberate cliches, as they presented highly convincing performances regardless of the absurdity of the script. Using a reimagined toy monkey, with a drum and sticks rather than symbols, Perkins is able to eliminate the redundant feeling present in the written work. Or perhaps it was just because Disney already held rights to the ‘Monkey with Symbols’ through Toy Story 3. With the ability to cut between timelines, Perkins fleshes out characters, adding new personality and life to this originally simple story. Moreover, Perkin completely alters the climax of the story, but does not fully conclude the plot — very much similar to King.

This film left the audience in my theater laughing and gasping at highly unconventional and seemingly never ending plot twists and directorial decisions. I would recommend a film like this to any horror fanatic looking to gain perspective on the genre — but do remember that this film is an acquired taste. Sometimes the best way to appreciate the media you enjoy is to deconstruct and reimagine it. Perkin’s reconstruction may be upside down and somewhat incomprehensible at times, but his artistic intention is received by those who appreciate King’s original story. It must be understood: this work is gaudy, and is better off for it.