To be honest, all the trailer for The Monkey needed was to include three names: Stephen King, James Wan, and Ossood Perkins. This trio will instantly dazzle any horror lover, especially with Perkins’ great success with Long Legs. But no, the first full trailer for The Monkey goes beyond just those names. It showcases a horror film that is likely to be extremely sensitive and we can’t wait.
The Monkey film is written and directed by Ossood Perkins, adapted from a short story by writer Stephen King, and produced by James Wan. It stars Theo James (The White Lotus) as a man whose family is terrorized by an evil monkey doll. Every time the mysterious doll hits its cymbals, someone dies. According to the movie poster, “Everyone dies. And that’s silly. Here is the first teaser for The Monkey:
This is the poster that we believe may spoil the movie with its terrifying slogan.
From what we know about King’s original story, it seems that the film version of The Monkey has a similar setup but is likely to go even further than that. Last year, Deadline magazine described the plot as follows: “When twins Hal and Bill discover their late father’s old monkey game in the attic, a series of gruesome deaths begin to occur around them. The brothers decide to get rid of the monkey and move on with their lives, drifting apart over the years. But when the mysterious deaths begin again, the brothers must come together again to find a way to destroy the monkey forever before it takes the life of everyone close to them. So, it seems we are getting more monkey, more death, and more of our main star as well, in a dual role.
But how will all of this look? The tone of the trailer is extremely comical horror and that is partly thanks to Shirley and Lee’s song “Let the Good Times Roll.” But could this just be the teaser provided by Neon? The idea of the cursed monkey forcing people to kill by hitting its cymbals is a very silly idea. And we know that Perkins likes to play with tone and expectations in his films. So we speculate that while The Monkey may not be direct horror comedy, it will be very funny at times and very scary at times. We’ll find out in a few months.
Alongside Theo James, The Monkey stars Christian Convery (Sweet Tooth) as well as Tatiana Maslany (She-Hulk, Orphan Black), Elija Wood (Lord of the Rings), Colin O’Brien (Wonka), Rowan Campbell (Halloween Ends), and Sarah Levy (Schitt’s Creek). It will be released on February 21.
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