The Monkey (2025) will kill you or somebody near you

The Monkey's plot is a haphazard string of events created to get us to the bloody parts. Twin brothers find an evil toy monkey that kills people when it is wound up using the method of mysterious coincidence. The Monkey exists to entertain an audience with over the top splatter, not caring about who will die or really even when. 

     At this point I am not sure if I am talking about the evil toy in the movie or the movie itself.

     Osgood Perkins proved he could make a creepy mood movie when he got Nicholas Cage to dance around in Longlegs and a period piece in whatever the great Alice Kringe was doing in Gretel & Hansel, so having proved that here he kinda went goofy. The Monkey is a goofy movie. It's a summer camp tale from after the counselors left the fire and the weirdest kid started telling a ghost story off the top of his head with half-remembered parts of Final Destination. It's controlled chaos in the best way, organized mayhem that telegraphs the kills and then executes anyone on screen that is not the main character or his kin, sorta.

     Theo James does a fine job here in a dual role of older Hal and Bill, but I didn't give a shit about this character. The film starts with the twins as boys but then accelerates to present day after the death of their mother. Honestly, I would have been happier with it being an 80s period piece and have the kids try and deal with the monkey's mayhem. It would have been more impactful than the semi-road movie we got with Hal and his son. Most of the trip is forced conflict and his son is there to give him someone to emote with until we find his brother. Feels like the story did not need all this, and Christian Convery did a stand up job as the younger twins.

     The whole thing at times felt over complicated. Like Perkins and the writers wanted to make a silly splatter death movie but had to justify that with a theme. That's all good, bleed for your art, but I would have been just fine seeing the variety of deaths and characters trying to make sense of it. 

     I do applaud them for not giving an answer. The monkey is not haunted by a Venetian toymaker who was cursed by a witch for using the red dye number nine that killed her baby. It's just evil and can't be destroyed and it's gonna kill. It has no purpose, can't be weaponized, can't be reasoned with. Just a killer toy monkey. Delightful.

      A damn good time at the movies that for the most part clips along. See it on the screen if you love theaters.