The Monkey

Keeper

22/11/25

Cineworld, Edinburgh

In 2024 Longlegs established Osgood Perkins as a horror auteur. If 2025’s The Monkey felt more like an audacious splatter comedy than anything else, it still delivered a fresh approach to his chosen genre. Keeper is perhaps closer in tone to the first film, a brooding atmospheric piece that takes its own sweet time to offer the viewer any real clues as to what’s actually going on. For reasons best known to Cineworld, it’s only offered in a late night screening, but I’m interested enough by what’s gone before to seek it out.

Liz (Tatiana Maslany), an artist, and Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland), a doctor, have been going out together for a year and, as a treat, he takes her to his secluded cabin in the woods for a leisurely weekend. As ever in these scenarios, Liz has no qualms about accompanying him, seemingly unperturbed by the fact that, despite being with him for quite some time, she really doesn’t know very much about him.

When they arrive, a chocolate-smeared package is waiting for them. Malcolm explains that the cabin’s ‘caretaker’ has baked them a special cake as a welcome present. Liz is understandably dismayed to discover that the cabin isn’t quite as remote as she’s been led to believe. There’s another one nearby, which – Malcolm explains – belongs to his cousin, who he rarely ever speaks to. But shortly thereafter, Darren (Birkett Turton) pays them an unscheduled visit and turns out to be a smirking, obnoxious creep. He’s accompanied by Minka (Eden Weiss), a young model who Darren claims can’t speak a word of English. But in a rare moment when they’re alone, Minka warns Liz – in English – not to eat the cake.

But Malcolm is insistent that she should sample a piece – it would be rude not to, he tells her – so she complies and, later, waking in the night, finds herself compelled to sneak downstairs and devour the rest of it…

Keeper is a weirdly compelling story written by Nick Leppard and inspired, I suspect, by the myth of Bluebeard. This is a film that exerts a powerful sense of dread throughout, one that chooses to derive its chills from things only half-heard and half-seen. Unexplained shadows move inexplicably across a scene, blurred visions exist somewhere between sleep and wakefulness and occasionally we’re unsure of what’s actually happening and what belongs in Liz’s dreams.

What is that out-of-focus shape lurking in the background of a scene? Who is that talking somewhere upstairs? And who are the mysterious women from different time zones who we keep catching glimpses of? Whoever they are, they’re clearly not happy.

Perkins handles the various elements with considerable skill and, for the first hour, manages to keep this pressure cooker of a tale bubbling nicely – but an attempt in the final third to offer a coherent explanation for what’s actually going on places the story in the realms of folk horror and is arguably not quite as assured as what’s gone before. 

Still, this is nonetheless big steps ahead of the usual slice-and-dice-cabin-in-the-woods fare we’ve seen so many times before and, even if I don’t get home till after midnight, it’s worth the price of admission. News that Perkins has another film arriving shortly confirms that he’s not one to rest on his laurels. I’ll be interested to see whatever he comes up with next.

3.8 stars

Philip Caveney

The Monkey

23/02/25

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Director Osgood Perkins scored a palpable hit last year with Longlegs, a slow-burn horror that simmered with an overpowering sense of dread. So the news that he is helming an adaptation of Stephen King’s The Monkey (itself inspired by WW Jacobs’ classic short story, The Monkey’s Paw) leads me to expect that this will deliver more of the same. So I’m taken somewhat off-balance when the film promptly reveals itself as an absurd black comedy with lashings of gore. The result is never particularly scary, but it does prompt a surprising amount of incredulous laughter.

It begins in flashback, as the father of twin boys, Hal and Bill (both played by Christian Convery), attempts to gift an unwanted ‘toy’ to a thrift store, with unexpectedly gruesome results. The toy in question is the titular simian, a wind-up automaton that plays a drum to the tune of ‘I Do Like To Be Beside the Seaside.’ Once activated (by turning the key in its back), it has a nasty habit of ensuring that somebody in the immediate vicinity will get horrifically mangled, for no apparent reason other than it’s a nasty little pest who enjoys doing that kind of thing.

After their father ‘goes out for cigarettes and never returns,’ Hal and Bill grow up under the care of their understandably disturbed mum, Lois (Tatiana Maslany). One night, when searching through their absent father’s belongings, the boys discover the monkey in its box. Probably not a good idea to wind the key, you might think, but hey, kids will be kids…

By adulthood, the two brothers (now played by Theo James) have drifted apart. Hal is the father of a teenage boy, but after his marriage break-up, only gets to spend one night a year with Petey (Colin O’Brian) and – wouldn’t you know it – that one night is when the malevolent monkey chooses to make its timely reappearance…

There’s much I like about this film: Nico Aguilar’s dark, brooding cinematography is suitably eye-catching and the gnarly splatter effects – created by no less than sixteen people in the arts department – take a wonderfully Heath Robinson approach to the task of dissembling human bodies. Much of the resulting mayhem is entertaining. The monkey itself is an engaging creation, positively oozing menace in every shot. But not everything in the production is quite so positive.

While a host of interesting characters manage to pop up to deliver Perkins’ sparky dialogue, no sooner have they appeared than they’re being messily spread across the screen and the effect is that this feels like a film that’s almost entirely peopled by bit players (or players in bits?). Perkins himself cameos as ‘Uncle Chip’ but gifts with only one line of dialogue before he gets turned to mush, while Elijah Wood doesn’t fare much better as Petey’s stepfather, Ted, though – to be fair – he’s one of the few characters who actually survives. Furthermore, a sub-plot featuring a man called Thrasher (Rohan Campbell) is so clumsily inserted into the action that for a while it only serves to confuse me, particularly when the actor is also obliged to play two characters.

I’m clearly not the only one with misgivings. Half an hour into the screening, three viewers get up and march determinedly out of the auditorium. Those with a predilection for comedy in a deep shade of anthracite may (like me) laugh out loud at what they’re watching and will possibly revel in the WTF final scenes.

But The Monkey is a tricky little beast and one thing is for sure: it won’t be for everyone.

3.7 stars

Philip Caveney