The Monkey 4K 2025 Ultra HD 2160p

Story Movie

As a child, Hal and his twin brother Bill found a wind-up monkey with a drum among the things of their father who had abandoned them. It turned out that if you turn the key, someone from their neighborhood will die - so the boys lost their mother and decided to hide the hellish toy more securely. A few years later, having already gone through a divorce, Hal lives in constant fear for the lives of loved ones and does not communicate with his brother. When he and his teenage son go on a week-long trip, horrifying deaths begin to occur again.

Review 4K Movie

Osgood Perkins is gaining momentum: less than a year after the premiere of the creepy procedural “The Soul Collector,” “Monkey” is already hitting the screens, a comedy-meta-horror-satire that both respects King's legacy and pokes fun at genre clichés.

Let me remind you that Perkins started (and did not finish) as an actor — and he didn't play just anyone: he played Norman Bates himself, or rather his younger version in the film Psycho II (1983). It seems that everything was predestined. We'll skip the screen tests, they're not that interesting. His directorial debut turned out to be more interesting — the dramatic thriller February (2017) with Kiernan Shipka and Emma Roberts about the devil, loneliness, and growing up. An interesting thing: those who prefer unusual stories and a special atmosphere should check it out. Osgood's directorial career has been free of failures: The Twilight Zone, Gretel & Hansel, and finally The Soul Collector (oh, the great Cage!) — all good, nice, though again, not for everyone. I, for example, am a fan.

But that's not what we're talking about today. If The Collector came out with a serious tone and a thick atmosphere of hopelessness, then Monkey is a completely different story. In the plot, two twin brothers discover a wind-up monkey drummer in their father's closet: “turn the key and something will happen.” And from the moment the boys turned the key for the first time, their lives changed forever. The program features absurd, inevitable deaths in the spirit of Final Destination and a constant feeling of anxiety as you wait for the stick to fall on the drum.

Mr. Perkins skillfully balances on the border between genre classics and auteur expression. On the one hand, it is natural horror, where blood and guts are turned inside out, disgusting and beautiful, scary and oppressive atmosphere. On the other hand, it is a comedy with deliberately clichéd phrases, murderously stupid situations, predictably dull twists and turns, and strikingly absurd deaths. And in the middle is a story about a whole generation of children abandoned by their fathers (and this “habit” is passed down from generation to generation), where the moral is simple and sad: if the father hadn't left the family, none of this nonsense would have happened.

All of this adds up to meta-horror (not to be confused with post-horror): a traditional horror movie, but on a higher level, because the traditions of horror movies are beautifully and tastefully subverted here. Here you have the basics: a cursed object, a maniac, a series of deaths, a frightening character (here it's a monkey, but there are also clowns, dolls, mannequins, etc.). Here's the superstructure: family ties, echoes of bullying, the consciousness of the main characters (if they realize that something is wrong in the basement, they don't go there). And there's a level up: it's stylishly shot, the atmosphere of King's works has been preserved, plus there's a cool soundtrack and a level of reflection worthy of “five years with a psychologist.” In short, it's funny and creepy at the same time. And what a thrill it is to watch it on the big screen!