MOVIE NEWS – Osgood Perkins, the director of The Monkey, has shared his perspective on how the film uniquely portrays death. Opening in theaters this past Friday, the movie presents mortality as an unavoidable reality, wrapped in chaos and sharp satire. If on-screen deaths make you uncomfortable, The Monkey might not be for you—it gets brutally messy.

Speaking with Cinema Blend, Perkins explained that, unlike most horror films, his aim was to make audiences more conscious of death’s inevitability. At the same time, he emphasized that his film doesn’t stray from horror’s fundamental themes:

“In a way, every horror movie is about death, isn’t it? It’s inevitable. The only difference is how it happens—whether it’s a chainsaw, a ghost, or demonic possession. It’s like a twisted game of chance: pick a card, any card. So I wanted to lean into that idea and craft a horror film that directly confronts the most basic, universal truth. It felt too obvious not to explore…

Death is always lingering in the back of our minds—maybe we should acknowledge it more. And creating a horror movie that embraces the absurdity of how we all meet our end felt like the right approach.”

A Bold Take on a Stephen King Classic

The Monkey is based on Stephen King’s short story from the 1985 collection Skeleton Crew. While fans may recall the eerie book cover featuring a cymbal-clapping toy monkey, Perkins made some tweaks: this time, the monkey plays the drums, and each time it’s wound up, another gruesome death follows.

The film takes a sharp turn from Perkins’ previous works. Instead of a slow-burning, atmospheric horror experience, it’s a darkly comedic, gore-filled ride that feels like it was ripped straight from a Final Destination playbook. Yet beneath the exaggerated violence, the movie delivers a stark message about humanity’s refusal to accept death. This theme was precisely what drew Theo James to his role as Hal and Bill Shelburn:

“What stood out to me when reading the script was the way it tackled mortality amid all the madness. Humanity has accomplished so much, yet the one thing we still can’t accept is death. We spend our lives trying to outrun it, pretending it won’t happen, but it’s the one thing we all have in common.”

‘The Monkey’ Brings a New Spin to King’s Horror Legacy

If you think you’ve seen every type of Stephen King adaptation, The Monkey is here to prove you wrong. Perkins has already shown a knack for reinventing classic horror elements, as seen in his serial killer thriller Longlegs and his twisted fairy tale reimagining Gretel & Hansel. Now, he takes on a King story that many believed was too difficult to adapt.

Instead of approaching the material with pure terror, he injects it with dark humor and absurdity—a combination rarely seen in King adaptations. If you catch it in theaters, you might be surprised by how much laughter accompanies the carnage in Osgood Perkins’ unique take on King’s horror legacy.

Source: MovieWeb