‘The Monkey’ Trailer: Oz Perkins Strikes While The Iron’s Hot

Aug 13

From Ryan Cordaro

It’s felt like a long summer and it’s very quickly coming to a close. One of the biggest surprise hits of the summer was and still is Longlegs, which is currently one of the most successful indie horror movies in recent memory. Its success is mainly thanks to NEON, which gave Longlegs an aggressive marketing campaign that knocked out fellow indie horror movie Maxxxine, which was expected to be the big indie horror hit this summer. It also made a pretty big name out of Osgood Perkins, the writer and director of Longlegs. Now, Perkins is coming out swinging with his second film in just over six months and has some big names backing him.

The Monkey is based on Stephen King’s short story of the same name, and follows twin brothers named Hal and Bill. They stumble upon their father's vintage toy monkey, and after some strange deaths surrounding this monkey, they go their separate ways. But when the inexplicable deaths resurface, the brothers are compelled to reconcile and embark on a mission to permanently eliminate the cursed toy. Perkins and King wrote the script, but the big new name on board is James Wan as a producer through his Atomic Monster company. That alone should get horror fans excited, but seeing that Perkins is coming back so quickly after Longlegs shows that he isn’t stopping the upward momentum of his career any time soon.

The Monkey stars Theo James (X-Men ‘97, The White Lotus), Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law), Elijah Wood (The Lord of the Rings, the upcoming The Toxic Avenger), Christian Convery (Sweet Tooth, Cocaine Bear), Colin O'Brien (Wonka, Mr. Harrigan’s Phone), Rohan Campbell (Halloween Ends, Virgin River), and Sarah Levy (Schitt’s Creek, SurrealEstate).