The Monkey (2025)

Critics gave The Monkey a 77% on Rotten Tomatoes, CinemaScore audiences gave it a C+, and both groups have a point. Osgood Perkins turned a Stephen King story about a wind-up toy monkey into a horror comedy where every drumbeat means a freak accident for somebody nearby, and the movie plays each one for a laugh. As kids, twins Hal and Bill find it in their missing dad’s stuff, then box it up and toss it into a well. A quarter century later, Theo James plays both grown twins, who haven’t spoken in nine years, until Bill calls to say the monkey is back. Hal, jumpy and barely in his son’s life, has to go deal with it. The jokes are pitch dark and the tone swings wildly, so it’s rarely scary, and the last stretch runs out of steam. Keep the kids far away. A 5.7 because it’s clever, weird and a little hollow. $473 says you spot a wind-up toy at a secondhand shop and set it down very, very gently.

What works: Perkins finds a cruel, clever sense of humor in King’s premise, and the imagery is striking.

What doesn’t: The tone lurches so often between jokes and grief that nothing feels scary, and the final stretch loses steam.

Who it’s for: Grown-up horror fans with a very dark sense of humor. Not for kids, at all.