Monkey, The

"The monkey that likes killing our family... it's back."

―Bill Shelburn

The Monkey

Credits
Title:	The Monkey
Director:	Osgood Perkins
Writers:	Osgood Perkins
Producers:	James Wan; Brian Kavanaugh-Jones; Judson Scott; Peter Safran; Natalia Safran; Teddy Schwarzman; Andrew Levine; Jesse Savath; Emily Thomas; Jason Wald; Nancy Xu; Fred Berger; Giuliana Bertuzzi; Dave Caplan; Omani Carson; Michael Clear; Chris Cole; Liz Destro; Jonathan JJ Dubois; Chris Ferguson; John Friedberg; Ryan Friscia; David Gendron; Michael Heimler; Ali Jazayeri; Peter Luo; Marlaina Mah; Simon Misselbrook; Christian Parkes; Andy Price; Sara W. Price; Connor Purcell; Owen Qing; Tom Quinn; John Rickard
Composer:	Edo Van Breemen
Cinematography:	Nico Aguilar
Editors:	Graham Fortin; Greg Ng
Production
Production company:	Atomic Monster C2 Motion Picture Group Black Bear International Range Media Partners The Safran Company British Columbia Film Commission Stars Collective Films Entertainment Group
Distributed by:	Neon
Released:	February 21st, 2025
Rating:	R
Running time:	98 min.
Country:	USA
Language:	English
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The Monkey is an American feature film of the supernatural thriller subgenre of horror with an emphasis on the killer toys motif. It is based on the 1980 short story "The Monkey" by author Stephen King. It was written and directed by Osgood Perkins. Released through Neon, the film was produced by Atomic Monster, the C2 Motion Picture Group, The Safran Company, Black Bear International, Range Media Partners, the British Columbia Film Commission and the Stars Collective Films Entertainment Group. The little bastard premiered in France and Spain on February 14th, 2025. It was released theatrically in United States, United Kingdom and Canada on February 21st, 2025. The film stars Theo James in the dual role of twin brothers Hal & Bill Shelburn with Christian Convery playing a younger version of the siblings. It also stars Tatiana Maslany as mother Lois Shelburn, Colin O'Brien as Hal's son Petey and Rohan Campbell as weirdo Ricky.

Plot[]

Toy monkey 001 — You wanna buy a monkey?

All the craziest shit seems to happen in Canada, right? Well this time is no exception. The zaniness starts in 1999 when airline pilot Petey Shelburn comes into possession of a toy monkey with a tin drums set. Clearly such an object cannot be anything but cursed as Petey soon learns. Desperate to get rid of the thing, he tries to sell to a pawn shop, but the proprietor has no interest. The monkey starts playing his drum, which triggers the curse. Whenever the monkey plays his drum, random events take place that result in the death of someone within the vicinity of it's owner, but the owner themselves are otherwise unharmed. After the monkey plays his drum, a harpoon fires, disemboweling the proprietor. Petey disappears soon after.

The monkey is eventually handed down to Petey's twin sons Bill and Hal. Petey never returned home and is presumed dead; or maybe he just found something better. Who knows? Bill is three minutes older than Hal and allegedly ate his brother's placenta in the womb, which could explain why he is such a mean, bullying little prick, whereas Hal is kind of spineless. The boys' mother, Lois Shelburn, has taken on a very dark demeanor following the disappearance of her husband.

As the mother goes out for the evening, a babysitter named Annie brings the boys to a hibachi restaurant. Hal has possession of the monkey, which begins playing. After which, the hibachi chef accidentally swings his blade a little wide, slicing through Annie's throat to the point that her head falls off. A short time following Annie's funeral, Hal winds up the monkey's key again, hoping that it will kill his a-hole brother. Unfortunately, one cannot direct the monkey as to who it's target is going to be. When Bill returns home from school, he watches his mother as she suffers a brain aneurysm and dies. Hal knows that the monkey is responsible and tries to destroy it, but it keeps reforming.

Bill and Hal end up moving to Maine where they end up living with uncle Chip and aunt Ida. That damn monkey mysteriously appears again and Bill comes to recognize the power of the toy. He winds up the key and the monkey plays his drum. Soon after, Chip is trampled in a horse stampede leaving little more than soupy remains. The twins agree to get rid of the monkey by boxing it up and throwing it down a well, hoping that it will remain contained. And so it does... for a little while anyway.

Wife, Ted and Hal — Looks like a happy family, don't it? Think again.

Twenty-five years passes and the shared experiences with the cursed toy have left the brothers estranged. Hal has gone on to have his own son, named Petey after his father, but Hal has not taken part in his son's life, due to his fear that his son might one day suffer the curse of the monkey. Hal only sees Petey once a year and as the boy is now a teenager, his ex-wife intends on taking full custody along with her husband, Ted. Hal now has one final weekend to spend with his on.

Meanwhile, that damn monkey has found a way out of the well and is back to his old antics again. Aunt Ida accidentally sets her head on fire and goes racing outside flailing her arms like a maniac rather than attempting to put the fire out. Needless to say, she dies. But who has been winding the monkey's key? Hmmm.

Toy monkey 002 — You never know what that damn monkey is gonna do!

When Hal learns of Aunt Ida's death, he takes Petey with him and goes to the house. Learning that an estate sale was held, Hal is fearful that the monkey may have been among the items. Through the course of this, Petey learns that he has an uncle Bill, even though Hal lied to him about being an only child. They meet with Barbara, a realtor, who tells them that a string of strange deaths began occurring in the neighborhood shortly after the estate sale. Barbara takes Hal and Petey through the house, but then a shotgun suddenly mis-fires blowing Barbara's head off. Damn monkey.

Meanwhile, the person who purchased the monkey at the estate sale is a long-haired local weirdo named Ricky. Ricky was actually hired by Bill Shelburn to find and purchase the monkey on his behalf. Bill believes that Hal had used the monkey and had it kill their aunt Ida. Bill now wants to use the monkey against his brother, believing (somewhat accurately) that Hal's "monkeying" with the toy is what led to the death of their mother. Now he wants to use it as an instrument of revenge. Unfortunately the monkey's shine seems to be affecting everyone else in town except for Hal. Bill contacts Hal and tells him that he has the toy. He is willing to allow Hal's son Petey to wind it up, thus insuring his safety, but otherwise he plans to continue using it, which now puts Petey at risk.

Ricky, who has now developed his own obsession with the evil little toy, encounters Petey and forces him at gunpoint to retrieve the object from Bill's house for his own personal use. Bill repeats the offer to Petey to wind up the toy, and upon doing so, learns that the next victim is actually weirdo Ricky, who is killed when a swarm of wasps exit their hive and sting him repeatedly across the face.

Toy monkey 003 — This monkey is about to set it off!

Hal reaches Bill's house to rescue Petey from his evil brother's clutches (as well as the cursed monkey toy). Bill is furious to see that the curse has yet to claim his brother, so he tries forcing the monkey to play his drum without winding it up. The monkey begins striking his drum uncontrollably, which triggers a fuselage of carnage throughout the neighborhood as dozens of people begin dying outrageous, gruesome deaths [Cue the flaming baby stroller from the trailer]. Shortly thereafter, the monkey beats its drums one final time and Bill is suddenly decapitated by a bowling ball bearing the name of his mother, Lois.

Hal and Petey exit the house and begin slowly driving through town to observe the carnage, which includes a man being impaled by a surfboard and a school bus full of cheerleaders who have had the portions of their bodies that were leaning out the windows cut off. They come to a literal crossroads where they observe a pale-skinned man driving a horse coach, which is also white. The image reminds Hal of a passage from the Book of Revelation, "I looked, and behold, an ashen horse; and he who sat on it had the name Death". Hal and Petey determine that they are now and forever the owners of the monkey and must prevent the key from ever being used to wind it up ever again. Hal, determined to reconnect with his son, suggests they go dancing as it is something Lois had loved, and Petey accepts.

Cast[]

Actor	Role
Theo James	Hal & Bill Shelburn
Tatiana Maslany	Lois Shelburn
Christian Convery	Young Hal & Bill
Colin O'Brien	Petey Shelburn
Elijah Wood	Ted Hammerman
Rohan Campbell	Thrasher Ricky
Sarah Levy	Aunt Ida
Osgood Perkins	Uncle Chip
Tess Degenstein	Barbara
Danica Dreyer	Annie Wilkes
Bea Perkins	Florence
Kingston Chan	Lieutenant Pepper
Zia Newton	Dwayne
Nicco Del Rio	Rookie priest
Shafin Karim	Pawn shop owner
Lumen Beltran	Police officer
Laura Mennell	Petey's mom
Janet Kidder	Thrasher's mom
Paul Puzzella	Thrasher's dad
Jeremy Cox	Beauchamps
Corin Clark	Diving woman
Jason Burkart	Lawnmower neighor
Scott Nicholson	Burt Burgerson
Katie Stuart	Nancy Rizzoli
Michael Anthony Sallegue Samosa	Hibachi chef
Trey Helten	Business man
Eve Exner	Monkey Man
Danny Virtue	Pale rider
Joyce Robbins	Neighbor lady #1
Jacqueline Robbins	Neighbor lady #2
Tina Pi	Supermarket patron
Doralynn Mui	Gas station mom
Adam Scott	Captain Petey Shelburn

Notes & Trivia[]

The tagline for the film is "Everybody dies. And that's fucked up".
There are a total of thirty-three credited cast members in this film.
Production on The Monkey began on February 5th, 2024. Principal filming concluded on March 22nd, 2024. The movie was shot in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
The Monkey grossed $14,014,649 during its opening weekend.
At its widest release, The Monkey was screened in 3,227 movie theaters.
The Monkey came in a number 2 at the box office, though it was the number one money maker for a film premiere that week. It was beaten by Captain America: Brave New World, which was entering its second week and was also screened on about 1,000 more theaters than The Monkey. The film beat out The Unbreakable Boy, which came in at #5.
Director and screenwriter Osgood Perkins makes an appearance in the film as Chip Shelburn - the uncle of Hal & Bill.
The design of the monkey toy presented in this film is based on the Jolly Chimp toy, which was originally manufactured by Louis Marx & Co. in 1932. Also marked as "Hoppo the Waltzing Monkey", this toy was designed as a chimpanzee in a sitting position, wearing human attire and adorned with two symbols, which it would clap together to produce a sound. This film switches out the cymbals and replaces them with a toy drum. In the original Stephen King short story, "The Monkey", the toy had cymbals.
Director and screenwriter Osgood Perkins also directed the 2024 cult hit Longlegs, which was also released through Neon. Both films deal with the subject of killer toys.
Actress Beatrix Perkins, who plays Florence, is credited as Bea Perkins in this film. Bea is the daughter of Osgood Perkins, the granddaughter of Anthony Perkins, and the niece of Elvis Perkins.
The song that the monkey plays is "I Do Like to be Beside the Seaside", which is a music hall song first written in 1907 and recorded in 1909. It was written by John H. Glover-Kind.
Producers of this film believed that the visual interpretation of the monkey clapping cymbals together was a trademark owned by the Walt Disney Company because of the presence of a similar character that appeared in the computer animated family film Toy Story 3, who was an employee of a character named Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear. In truth, the creators behind Toy Story 3 drew inspiration for their character from the original Stephen King story.
The name of Hal and Bill's childhood babysitter is Annie Wilkes. Annie Wilkes is also the name of the main character from the 1987 Stephen King novel Misery. She was later portrayed by Kathy Bates in the Misery feature film and by Lizzy Caplan in season two of Castle Rock.
Actors Tatiana Maslany and Janet Kidder also appeared together in the 2004 film Ginger Snaps: Unleashed.

Review Ratings[]

On the Internet Movie Database, The Monkey has a Starmeter score of 6.5 out of 10 based on more than 12,000 user rankings, which makes up 25.9% of the total vote. 740 users gave the film a perfect score of 10, which makes up 6.1% of the overall score. 403 people rated the film as a 1, making up 3.3% of the total voting pool.
On Metacritic, The Monkey has a Metascore of 61 out of 100 based on forty-seven critic reviews, indicating generally favorable reviews. It has 27 positive reviews, making up 57% of the total vote. It has 5 negative reviews at 11% of the total vote and 15 mixed reviews at 32% of the vote. The film has a user score of 6.7 out of 10 based on sixty-three user ratings.
On the movie review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, The Monkey has a Tomatometer score of 78% based on 230 posted critic reviews (including top critics). It has 180 positive reviews and 50 negative reviews, averaging 6.70 out of 10. The movie has a Popcornmeter score of 61% based on more than 2,500 user ratings, averaging 3.5 out of 5.
On Letterboxd, The Monkey has a weighted average score of 2.95 out of 5 based on 159,362 user votes.
On The Movie Database.org, The Monkey has a user score of 61%.

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