Theo James makes his horror debut — and he’s already dripping with blood.
“White Lotus” and “Time Traveller’s Wife” team up with fellow Warner Bros. staple James Wan, who is producing Osgood Perkins‘ “The monkey.”
James plays twins Bill and Hal, who discover their father’s old apple case in the attic. The official logline reads simply: “When twin brothers find a mysterious decommissioned monkey, a series of harrowing deaths tear their family apart. Twenty-five years later, the monkey begins a new killing spree that forces the estranged brothers to confront the cursed toy.”
The full synopsis is still elusive, but a clamp was shared to tease the haunting horror feature.
“The Monkey” is based on Stephen Kingshort story from 1980 of the same name. Perkins wrote and directed the adaptation, which also stars Elijah Wood, Tatiana Maslany, Christian Convery, Colin O’Brien, Rohan Campbell and Sarah Levy.
“The Monkey” is Perkins’ latest Neon movie after writing history at the company with highest grossing film released by the distributor with “Longlegs.” The function even surpassed Neon’s best picture winner “Parasite” at the box office. Perkins already has a third film set to Neonbut the details remain secret. “Longlegs” was Perkins’ first feature with the distributor.
Perkins told The Hollywood Reporter that “The Monkey” is his most comedic feature to date.
“It feels more like an old John Landis movie or a Joe Dante movie or a Robert Zemeckis movie,” Perkin said. “I saw an opportunity to make a wry, absurdist comedy about death. It’s about the very basic fact that we all die — and how damn funny and weird and impossible and unreal is that? And coming at it from a tragicomedic kind of voice felt like the right fit.”
He added, “At the end of the day, if you want to narrow it down, it’s the haunted toy or the evil toy subgenre, and I couldn’t imagine doing a serious one. To me, approaching it that way rang completely false , so I just went the other way.”
“The Monkey” is produced by James Wan, Dave Caplan, Michael Clear, Chris Ferguson and Brian Kavanaugh-Jones. The film is Perkins’ first film since “Longlegs” became Neon’s highest-grossing film of all time and one of the highest-grossing horror films of 2024.
“The Monkey” premieres on February 21 in theaters from Neon. Check out the trailer below.
