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At any given point, there are usually several Stephen King adaptations in the works for either the big or small screen, and the first of those to hit the 2025 movie calendar is The Monkey. Horror movie fans are excited not only to see what might end up being the goriest King movie — and the funniest, if The Monkey’s trailer is any indication — but also because it’s the first project for director Osgood Perkins following the success of last year’s Longlegs. Critics have seen the movie, so let’s see if this sounds like one we have to see in the theater.
Early reactions were promising, even that of Stephen King himself, who called the movie adaptation of his short story “batshit insane” (in a good way). Critics are now able to expand their initial thoughts ahead of its February 21 release, and Eric Eisenberg writes in CinemaBlend’s review of The Monkey that audiences are going to have a ball tuning into the film’s disturbing and gross frequency. He gives it 4 out of 5 stars, saying:
Never before have we seen something like Osgood Perkins’ The Monkey: a terrific blend of pitch black sensibilities, a wickedly wry sense of humor, and epic body mutilation. It’s utterly bonkers and a wild riot.
Meagan Navarro of Bloody Disgusting rates it 3.5 skulls out of 5, noting its Final Destination-style executions and elaborate Rube Goldberg machine-like deaths. However, it’s The Monkey’s cast — particularly the dual performances of Christian Convery and Theo James — that makes this ticket worth buying. Navarro continues:
Convery and James anchor the insanity with dual grounding performances. Convery nails the shell-shocked, early exploration with the Monkey’s modus operandi, which Perkins wisely refuses to ever explain. But it’s James who turns in a revelatory performance, both as the audience proxy and as antagonistic foil, with dry wit and a willingness to swing for the fences with the script’s most outrageous demands. That’s at its most electric when James faces himself on screen, showcasing two distinctly different personalities caught in a bizarro cycle of death.
Katie Rife of AV Club gives The Monkey adaptation a B, noting that the movie is never scary, nor is it trying to be. It’s an explicitly gory and ridiculous horror-comedy that’s best if you don’t try to make sense of everything. Rife says:
It’s probably best not to dig too deeply into it, and to just slip on the puddle of blood and giggle at the little cartoon monkeys that appear in front of your concussed eyes. The Monkey is at its weakest when it tries too hard to explain what’s happening, either on a plot or on a thematic level. (The narration can be especially detrimental in this way.) And it’s strongest when it abandons its search for meaning and does a silly dance in the face of Death itself. A dry, mocking one though it might be, The Monkey is ultimately just a laugh.
Siddhant Adlakha of Inverse doesn’t agree with the “don’t dig too deep” advice and differs from other critics by trying to find rhyme or reason to the titular toy’s murders. Adlakha says Osgood Perkins’ exploration of death and remorse is neither funny nor bitter enough to hit home, writing:
As a piece in and of itself, The Monkey is a hobbling attempt at a roller coaster ride that never finds the right rhythm, either in its peaks and valleys, or its twists and turns. As a follow-up to Perkins’ Longlegs — a film that, for all its flaws, contains an atmospheric dread — it’s a bizarre effort that makes the former feel like a fluke. Where Perkins’ serial killer predecessor had a claustrophobic sensibility, The Monkey features little in the way of visual or thematic cohesion, and is bound mostly by errant snark à la Deadpool, which clashes wildly with its numerous hints towards poignancy around parenthood and death.
Tom Jorgensen of IGN rates the movie an “Amazing” 9 out of 10 and calls it one of the best horror-comedies in recent memory. The Monkey explodes off the screen with its gore and humor, Jorgensen says, writing:
The Monkey marches to the beat of its own bloodstained drum – and it’s an irresistible rhythm to groove to. Osgood Perkins and cast balance the horror and comedy inherent in the movie’s silly premise exceptionally well, and the surreal, absurd touches the Longlegs director adds to a world sketched out by Stephen King only help to set it apart from less imaginative, body-count-obsessed movies. The evil influence of the titular, cursed toy results in blockbuster showcases for fantastic gore effects that, when paired with the film’s surprisingly gentle stance on the inevitability of death, affirm how potent horror-comedy can be when executed with a strong perspective and a willingness to get weird.
Overall critics seem to really like The Monkey, with the movie compiling an early 92% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. If this sounds like an upcoming horror movie you can’t pass up, The Monkey premieres Friday, February 21.