Gore, death, and revenge are three qualities typically found in the horror genre, and the 2025 adaptation of Stephen King’s “The Monkey” does not shy away from them.
Many of King’s novels and short stories have been turned into movies or shows because of how influential he has been in the horror genre overall. However, many of them end up with very mixed reviews about whether they stick well to the original plotline or not.
The short story “The Monkey” was first published in 1980, later joining many of King’s other works in the “Skeleton Crew” collection in 1985. The story follows a man named Hal Shelburn, who recovers what seems like a toy monkey while cleaning out his childhood home with his family. But the past of the toy monkey is revealed as Hal remembers the many troubles and deaths it caused in his past.
Osgood Perkins, the director of “Longlegs,” interpreted this story in a slightly different way from King’s writing. The movie still portrays Hal as the main character who deals with what looks like a toy monkey, but his twin brother, Bill Shelburn, plays a much bigger role.
Perkins’ switch from Hal and Bill being an older-younger brother duo to twins allowed for the characters to have more room to grow in their relationship. Considering the boys were together when they found the monkey in the movie, it opened more reasons for both to have big roles in the story. But in the short story, Hal found the monkey alone and was the one to deal with the repercussions.
While this movie did creatively diverge from King’s story, it did it in a way that helped the audience connect with it more. It added a lot of humor that was not included in the original plotline to deal with the various deaths that happened throughout the film.
There was a point in the movie where a string of unlikely deaths was turned into a montage, which was meant to make them funny through the different forms of body humor used. But I think they were almost too absurd and not gory enough to pull the humor off entirely.
Many moments during this movie simply did not make sense in the way the short story did. King’s version focused a lot more on a father-son bond while Perkins’ had that in addition to the brotherly bond.
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To be completely honest, I enjoyed the movie and the way it was able to break away from the typical “toy haunts people” storyline by adding in more comedy. Rather than just seeing the horrible effects this monkey had on these people’s lives through jumpscares and daunting music, we were able to see it more from a regular lifelike side too. I liked how the movie held this main concept of everybody dies, and that is just how life works.
The only downside to this film for me was the many differences from the work it is based on. I enjoyed the way King’s story had more of an ambiguous feeling to why the monkey caused all these deaths, rather than how Perkins provided a character behind the monkey who just kept causing death until his enemy was gone.
Another thing I felt did not translate well from the story to the movie was how the film’s villain was defeated. In the short story, Hal manages to put the monkey somewhere where it will not be able to reappear for at least another 20 years. On the contrary, the movie has Hal simply talk down the character who keeps turning the key on the monkey, which feels less powerful than the original work.
Hal was prepared to sacrifice himself in the short story, but in the film, he just had to work out a communication issue with his twin. Besides the touching family aspect and semi-funny body humor in the movie, I would honestly prefer to read the story over again.