Osgood Perkins' 'The Monkey' adapts Stephen King's short story but diverges substantially, creating a unique horror-comedy narrative. While maintaining the cursed monkey toy premise, the film explores deeper themes like fatherhood and generational trauma, showcasing increasingly bizarre death scenes triggered by the toy. Perkins, distancing himself from King's text, reveals a personal connection through a voiceover from the protagonist, Hal, emphasizing inherited fears. This creative freedom results in a chaotic narrative that contrasts starkly with the original, leading to an unpredictable resolution and a larger thematic exploration than King's tale offered.
If you read Stephen King's 1980 short story 'The Monkey' and went into Osgood Perkins' new movie 'The Monkey' expecting basically the same thing, I have some bad news for you.
The filmmaker, who also wrote and directed 2024 breakout horror hit 'Longlegs,' told Business Insider that he read the story a few times before setting out to write his script and then didn't refer back to it again.
Instead, Perkins has made the story his own, adding multiple thematic layers to tell a story about fatherhood and generational trauma.
The catch, in the lore of both the short story and the film, is that the person who winds up the monkey can't be its victim. But that person also can't control the monkey.
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