Following the release of his hugely successful feature, , a good chunk of the horror fanbase is anticipating ' follow-up piece. Thankfully, the release date for , an adaptation of the 1980 short produced by is almost here. Given the caliber of horror bigwigs behind The Monkey, it instantly screams classic horror, but that may not be the case, with Perkins recently explaining that the movie is quite dissimilar from Longlegs. While it is essentially a horror movie, The Monkey will sandwich a lot of humor in between scares and Perkins has explained the inspiration behind his approach, which makes the final piece markedly different from King's story.
From to and last year's Longlegs, Perkins has gone quite dark with a few of his pieces, but after reading the script for The Monkey as presented by Wan's Atomic Monster, he considered it too dark for his liking and decided to take creative liberties with the overall tone of the story. The Monkey tells the story of two twin brothers, Hal and Bill (both played by ) who begin to experience bizarre deaths around them after discovering a toy monkey owned by their father. The tragic deaths depicted in the film is something Perkins can relate to, given how he lost both his parents under unfortunate circumstances. Inspired by his experience with grief and how he eventually achieved closure, Perkins decided to approach The Monkey with some lightheartedness. In his recent interview with Empire, he shared:
"I spent a lot of my life recovering from tragedy, feeling quite bad. It all seemed inherently unfair. You personalise the grief: 'Why is this happening to me?' But I'm older now and you realise this shit happens to everyone. Everyone dies. Sometimes in their sleep, sometimes in truly insane ways, like I experienced. ."
The blend of horror and comedy is a sub-genre that has proven popular and continues to draw immense appeal. While it remains to be seen if Perkins will take another controversial approach, as in, Longlegs, there's reason to hope for a positive outcome as the director also shared that, author, King was impressed with his script and gave it impeccable feedback. He added:
". And [Atomic Monster] said, 'It's f**king great.' To my delight, because James Wan does not typically make comedies. I was clear from the start that this wouldn't be jump scares, it wouldn't be really dark - it was gonna be heartfelt and redemptive. A good time at the movies."
The Monkey is Perkins' first horror-comedy and first King adaptation, and it will be interesting to see what new aspects the visionary director brings to the genre. In addition to James, the movie features a star-studded call sheet that includes (She-Hulk: Attorney at Law), (Wilfred), (Halloween Ends), (Schitt’s Creek) and Colin O’Brien (Mr. Harrigan’s Phone).
The Monkey swings into theaters on February 21. Check out the trailer above, which features a lot of bloody kills from the titular devilish dull.
The Monkey
The Monkey is based on Stephen King’s 1980 short story of the same name. The plot follows twin brothers Hal and Bill, played by Theo James and Christian Convery, who discover a cursed monkey toy in their father's attic. The toy is linked to a series of gruesome deaths, forcing the brothers to confront its dark power years later.
