The Monkey
Neon | Release Date: February 21, 2025 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
62
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 48 Critic Reviews
Positive:
28
Mixed:
15
Negative:
5
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The Observer (UK)Ellen E JonesFeb 26, 2025
Such intricate genre mechanisms are fundamental to The Monkey’s construction, but the film also has a heart that beats with authentic human emotion. Read full review
100
Original-CinThom ErnstFeb 18, 2025
As you might expect from King, The Monkey is dark, ruthless, and violent. What you might not expect is just how funny it is. Like, it's genuinely hilarious. Read full review
91
The PlaylistMike DeAngeloFeb 24, 2025
With its mix of splatter-speckled horror, dark humor, and unexpected emotional depth, The Monkey is an absolute riot that lands high on the rewatchability scale. It may not be as sleek as “Longlegs,” but Perkins proves once again that he’s one of horror’s most unique and daring voices. Read full review
91
ConsequenceLiz Shannon MillerFeb 21, 2025
Calibrating a horror-comedy requires intense precision, since the director has to keep the tension alive while also bringing in just the right level of over-the-top gore and mayhem to inspire laughs, not screams. I’d estimate that a good 95% of The Monkey is totally dialed in, especially when it comes to finding a level of gore that plays as hilariously disturbing. Read full review
90
LooperMatthew JacksonFeb 19, 2025
Violent, laugh-out-loud funny, and often cartoonishly macabre, The Monkey is everything "Longlegs" is not, and yet it fits perfectly in Perkins' larger body of work. And like "Longlegs," it's a horror experience that should not be missed. Read full review
90
IGNTom JorgensenFeb 3, 2025
The Monkey is one of the best horror-comedies (and Stephen King adaptations) in recent memory, exploding off the screen with both gory kills and big laughs. Read full review
89
PolygonChris PlanteFeb 24, 2025
Perkins has made a film that’s both more horrifically violent than his contemporaries’ projects and also unapologetically funny. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerFeb 20, 2025
No one else could have made this version of The Monkey because of all those indefinable, immutable yet ethereal elements that make Perkins’ movies not just popcorn flicks but gourmet popcorn. Read full review
88
TheWrapWilliam BibbianiFeb 21, 2025
A sick and twisted work of comic genius where the punchlines punch so hard you’ll explode. Read full review
85
The Daily BeastNick SchagerFeb 20, 2025
A unique saga of fathers, sons, and brothers, of fate, vengeance, and survival, and of a wind-up simian toy that just might be the Grim Reaper. Read full review
80
NMEJames MottramFeb 5, 2025
You’d be hard-pressed to call it moving, but at least there’s an emotional narrative that drags us through the grisly bits. Sick, dark and laugh-out-loud nuts. Read full review
80
Total FilmAmy WestFeb 3, 2025
The Monkey might be a horror, but it's a laugh riot too, as Osgood Perkins offers up a plethora of inventively gruesome kills and some surprisingly profound ideas surrounding life and death. Read full review
75
The AtlanticDavid SimsMar 8, 2025
Another kill is coming, and because we’re in this peculiar, mischievous film, it’ll be a playful one. But the outcome will always be the same: Someone who was once there is now gone. In the face of that chilling, prosaic nightmare, all Perkins can do is laugh. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliFeb 24, 2025
The movie isn’t quite as unhinged as the trailer indicates but it’s far enough off the beaten path to provide enjoyment for those who enjoy their blood & guts served with a twist. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperFeb 20, 2025
Everyone knows this is a gory B-movie where taste is not an issue, and they play their roles accordingly. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsFeb 20, 2025
While I hope Perkins doesn’t lean into jokey sadism as a dominant creative impulse — we have too many jokey sadists with movie deals as is — The Monkey asserts his stealth versatility as well as his confident technique. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeOdie HendersonFeb 19, 2025
Putting the film’s thesis statement in the mouth of its maternal figure feels intentional; so does the laissez-faire tone. As a result, we laugh so that we may not cry. Read full review
75
The Seattle TimesChase HutchinsonFeb 19, 2025
Life and death is one big joke in The Monkey, with the sense that Perkins is manically cackling along while he never skimps on the craft to make it all hit brutal pay dirt. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineRocco T. ThompsonFeb 19, 2025
The mayhem that the monkey doles out makes The Monkey closer in spirit to Evil Dead than Final Destination, as the film is less a Rube Goldberg contraption of overdesigned chaos than it is a Looney Tunes-esque spectacle of quick and dirty violence that hits like a punchline. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubKatie RifeFeb 3, 2025
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. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoFeb 3, 2025
There’s no cheating in The Monkey. It’s coming for you. And it’s gonna be messy. Read full review
71
Paste MagazineJesse HassengerFeb 19, 2025
What sometimes resembles a goof on Stephen King becomes a form of tribute to the author’s ability to mine terror from the mere facts of living. Read full review
70
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeFeb 20, 2025
Good old-fashioned disgusting fun. I had a blast. Read full review
70
The New York TimesAlissa WilkinsonFeb 20, 2025
The farce props up the nihilism, and gives The Monkey a strangely hopeful refrain. Read full review
70
Little White LiesHannah StrongFeb 19, 2025
It’s a good time, but not a great time – though within the canon of Stephen King adaptations, it’s definitely among the more fruitful offerings to make it to screen. Read full review
70
ColliderEmma KielyFeb 3, 2025
It may not feel as polished or suspenseful as Longlegs, but you can tell Perkins is having a whale of a time putting his years of horror filmmaking to the maximum. Read full review
63
Washington PostTy BurrFeb 20, 2025
It’s a fun movie to see with a rip-roaring midnight crowd; watched on its own, it’s a little depressing. You can only shock the monkey so many times before the shock wears off. Read full review
63
ObserverLaura BabiakFeb 19, 2025
Perkins’ take on the short story The Monkey certainly shows that he’s a filmmaker with a unique eye for horror (and comedy), though his attempts at grounding the story are less assured. Read full review
60
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyFeb 28, 2025
It’s a busy catalogue of gruesome absurdities that’s more consciously surrealist than the Final Destination series’s Mouse Trap-style executions, akin instead to the bizarro corpses crowding the afterlife’s waiting room in Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice (1988), with a splash of Peter Jackson’s early, gore-splattered horror-comedies. Read full review
60
We Got This CoveredCharlotte SimmonsFeb 24, 2025
The Monkey quite competently makes a monkey out of the human ego, though the comedy choreography is a few bananas short of a bunch. Read full review
60
Screen RantMae AbdulbakiFeb 21, 2025
It’s still a serviceable film, and you’re in for a wild and weird ride. Even its message, while nihilistic, has merit. I only wish The Monkey had a more balanced story to counteract its weaker elements. Read full review
60
ABC NewsPeter TraversFeb 21, 2025
Theo James plays twin brothers on the run from a toy monkey with blood-splattering murder on its mind. Director Oz Perkins doesn’t disappoint with his ferociously funny take on Stephen King’s short story even if he never reaches the horror heights. Read full review
60
Screen DailyTim GriersonFeb 13, 2025
For all its unpredictability and nerve, the film too often feels snarky rather than subversive. Read full review
60
EmpireJamie GrahamFeb 3, 2025
Don’t expect the true terror of Perkins’ Longlegs or King’s source story. Do expect plentiful gags to make you, well, gag. The best scenes here are a gory glory. Read full review
59
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzFeb 20, 2025
Perkins’s version of The Monkey is an annoying, snarky and slight endeavour that just about kills itself in its bid to satisfy all the many cinema-starved sickos out there. Read full review
50
The Associated PressJocelyn NoveckFeb 20, 2025
Not all of it works, but it’s never uninteresting or uncreative — especially when it comes to finding inventively horrible (or horribly inventive) ways for people to die. Read full review
50
SlashfilmJeremy MathaiFeb 6, 2025
The Monkey is a blood-soaked barrel of laughs and grisly kills that never finds an effective way to reconcile either of those. Read full review
40
iChristina NewlandFeb 28, 2025
The Monkey is surprisingly lacking in any good ideas. In fact, it’s the worst thing a horror film can be: boring. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)Angelica Jade BastienFeb 24, 2025
The problem is that The Monkey has a hole at its center. It isn’t comedic enough to distract from the fact that the film traffics in rote archetypes, and it doesn’t quite pluck the heartstrings of its audience over the ragged inheritance from fathers to their sons either. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleFeb 21, 2025
Given its overabundance of empty shock humor, the movie seems afraid to be about much of anything except its toy monkey’s prankish body count. Read full review
40
Rolling StoneDavid FearFeb 20, 2025
It’s content to be just one long, sick joke without a punchline, designed to occasionally punctuate a stylishly nihilistic P.O.V. with a lot of OMG moments. You may love it or hate it. Read full review
40
The TelegraphTim RobeyFeb 20, 2025
To everyone’s complaints that Longlegs’ plot turned daft, I can only shrug: it was easily assured enough to sustain a deadly undertow, while dancing about with a diabolical sense of mischief. I also point them to The Monkey as Exhibit A for what misfiring daftness looks like. Read full review
40
The GuardianBenjamin LeeFeb 19, 2025
The deaths here are neither funny nor scary or even gross enough to linger, we’re all rendered unshockable far too soon. Read full review
38
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiFeb 20, 2025
Nothing’s wrong with a few buckets of blood, but Perkins’ movie waters them down with its repetitious plot and weak attempts at humor. “The Monkey” strains to be a comedy as much as a horror film and effectively works as neither. Read full review
38
Movie NationRoger MooreFeb 13, 2025
The Monkey has no pace, no rising sense of urgency or suspense, no real path it’s following and little or nothing that amounts to a message. Read full review
30
VarietyOwen GleibermanFeb 24, 2025
It’s a ham-handed, lurchingly obvious mess, without the glimmer of human interest that even a sensationalist horror film needs. Read full review
30
Wall Street JournalKyle SmithFeb 21, 2025
Adolescent is the ruling adjective here; this is an increasingly tiresome and almost wholly senseless feature. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen JohnsonFeb 19, 2025
All this could work, but Perkins never finds the proper tone in what is almost a spoof of the horror genre. Read full review
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