The good times are rolling for Osgood Perkins and Neon ahead of the release of The Monkey. In just a week following its debut, the official trailer for the director's Stephen King adaptation has racked up 109 million views across all social media platforms including TikTok, 43 million of which were there within the first 24 hours. Capturing that many eyes gives the murderous toy chimp the most-watched trailer ever for an indie horror film, though such impressive numbers are enough to top even major studio releases. Comparing it to buzzy releases within the past few years, the first trailers for Scott Derrickson's The Black Phone (73 million views), Parker Finn's Smile (100 million views), and, most recently, Robert Eggers's Nosferatu (74 million views) all couldn't match the sheer power of The Monkey.
From those results and the many fan reactions online, it's safe to say that the film is not just one of the most anticipated horror films of 2025 but one of the most anticipated films, period, of the year. There are plenty of reasons why the excitement is running high for The Monkey too. A twist on King's short story of the same name, it's Perkins's first film since last year's Longlegs, which became a smash hit for Neon and started as a viral darling itself before release thanks to an eerie marketing campaign full of cryptic teasers. Horror maestro James Wan is also attached as a producer along with a killer cast led by Theo James, alongside Tatiana Maslany, Christian Convery, Colin O’Brien, Rohan Campbell, Sarah Levy, Adam Scott, and Elijah Wood.
Perkins takes a lot of liberties with his version of The Monkey, which revolves around twin brothers played by James and the sinister toy that tore their family apart with a string of wild murders. 25 years after they found and tried to destroy the evil object, the monkey is back with a vengeance, leaving a trail of stomach-churning violence in its wake and forcing the brothers to step in and finally put an end to the madness. As someone who lost both of his parents under unfortunate circumstances, Perkins approached it with a personal edge, yet he told Empire that he also wanted to convey the mindset he's adopted as he's grown older that sometimes, the inevitability of death, even in the most bizarre ways, can be tackled with a bit of levity. King, for his part, gave the filmmaker's adaptation an emphatic stamp of approval with "no notes," boding well for its release in February.
Early Reactions Can't Stop Raving About 'The Monkey'
Last Friday, Neon surprised the public with a secret screening for Beyond Fest at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, where The Monkey received widely positive reactions from those in attendance. Among the viewers was Collider's Perri Nemiroff, who had high praise for the film and its delightfully gory kills that follow the twins into adulthood. Perkins has become a standout voice in genre filmmaking thanks to past features like Hansel & Gretel and The Blackcoat's Daughter and his latest, she explained on X, continues his penchant for delivering stories that feel unique to his vision above all else:
"#TheMonkey is a super bloody blast! A nearly non-stop series of gleefully violent kill scenes that well earn every “holy sh*t” response they got out of me. Loved how quickly Oz Perkins cements that this is a version of the Stephen King short story that’s uniquely his own. I like some of his films more than others, but that’s something I often appreciate about his work in general. He always appears to have a clear, bold vision that’s been executed unapologetically.”
The Monkey hits theaters on February 21. Check out the record-breaking trailer above.
The Monkey
Release Date February 19, 2025
Runtime 98 Minutes
Writers Osgood Perkins
Producers John Rickard, Natalia Safran, Ali Jazayeri, Chris Ferguson, Fred Berger, Giuliana Bertuzzi, James Wan, Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, John Friedberg, Jason Cloth, David Gendron, Michael Clear, Jesse Savath, Peter Luo, Dave Caplan
English (US) ·