The Monkey (Osgood Perkins, 2025) & Imaginary (Jeff Wadlow, 2024)

Bonus: trailer time for Bugonia and Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere

I’ve had a bit of an odd week when it comes to streaming. I passed on both The Old Guard 2 (Netflix) and Heads of State (Prime Video) after watching about five minutes of each.

I know the latter one got some positive notices, but I instinctively knew it wasn’t for me. I did manage to finish Sony Marvel’s Kraven: The Hunter, which is now on Netflix in Europe, but I won’t trouble you with that either, cause it’s so dull, I might fall asleep trying to review it.

So instead I chose to review The Monkey, which even though I missed it in theaters, was always on my list. As a bonus review I chose the somewhat underrated Imaginary by Jeff Wadlow.

I also watched some trailers and I really enjoyed the one for Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere. I think this might do very well at the Oscars next year.

It’s from writer and director Scott Cooper who directed Jeff Bridges to his well deserved Oscar for his leading role in Crazy Heart, back in 2008. The new movie stars Jeremy Allen White as Springsteen and Jeremy Strong as his mentor and producer Jon Landau.

Based on the book by Warren Zanes, it basically follows Springsteen while making his dark but wonderful Nebraska album, while confronting the ghosts from his childhood.

I really enjoyed the Dylan movie, but this one promises to go a lot deeper, so here’s hoping that my feelings about the movie prove to be correct. It’s set for a Fall release, in the week of October 23.

Another trailer I really enjoyed was the one for the new Yorghos Lanthimos movie Bugonia, not only starring his favorite muse Emma Stone, but also Jesse Plemons (Kinds of Kindness) and (apparently) Alicia Silverstone, in a yet to be disclosed role.

It’s a remake of a South Korean movie, Save The Green Planet (2003), by Jang Joon-hwan, and it’s about a major company CEO (Stone), who gets kidnapped by two conspiracy-obsessed young men who think she is an alien intent on destroying planet Earth. It’s also set for a Fall release.

Now on with the show…

THE MONKEY (Osgood Perkins, 2025)

I missed The Monkey in theaters, but The Monkey doesn’t miss: it’s a nasty little horror thriller, based on a short story by Stephen King, and written for the screen and directed by Osgood ‘Longlegs’ Perkins.

It’s not an immediate classic like Longlegs, maybe because there is no frantic Nicolas Cage performance to go with it, but it’s still one of the better King-adaptations that I’ve seen in recent years.

The first half is filled with the feeling of dread and despair that Perkins has become known for, even though it already has its fair share of pretty gruesome kills, while the second half goes for the jugular (sometimes quite literally) in more straightforward but still satisfying ways.

The Monkey tells the story of twin brothers Bill and Hal (as kids played by Christian Convery, later on as adults by Theo James).

Bill is the oldest and thinks that gives him the right to make the life of his younger sibling miserable.

Early on they find an old monkey toy in the attic, left there by their absent father (played in a cameo by Adam Scott), and with that trouble ensues.

Whenever the monkey is wound up and begins to bang the drum, someone dies, in ways befitting a horror movie.

So who dies exactly? I think you should find that out for yourself, but let me tell you that it’s enough for the boys to try and throw the monkey away, even though it’s also clear that the toy won’t go away that easily.

By that point it’s also clear that there is no point wishing anybody dead, cause the monkey (who is either a demon or death itself) simply kills who it wants to kill.

And why not? In the end death comes for us all and I guess it’s true what the movie says that it’s the only thing we really have in common.

As a voice-over tells us. ‘It’s not a matter of if, or even a question of how, it’s just a question of when.’

In the second part of the movie the brothers finally talk to each other again on the phone, having lived apart for more than ten years.

Their relationship still leaves a lot to be desired, with Bill holding a not unjustified grudge against Hal.

But while Bill is an unapologetic asshole, Hal is a more complicated kind of sad sack.

He not only seems to carry the weight of the past on his shoulders, he also has a difficult relationship with his son Petey, who he only sees one week a year.

It’s inevitable that Hal and Petey will at some point connect with Bill, just as The Monkey will return to create more havoc, leaving us to wonder who will make it to the end of the movie.

The movie is held back by some unexpected tonal shifts, not always knowing whether it wants to scare us, make us laugh or simply baffle us.

But even if The Monkey didn’t scare the living daylights out of me, Osgood Perkins is still the kind of director who manages to get under my skin, and I hate slash love him for that.

I give it 7 1/2 out of ten!

Note: The Monkey is available on Prime Video. It can also be watched through other platforms like Apple TV, Google Play Films, You See Play, Viaplay, Fandango at Home, Plex Online and (in the Netherlands) Pathé
Thuis.

Imaginary (Jeff Wadlow, 2024)

Imaginary is an American horror film about an evil teddybear. Sounds like fun, right?

Directed by Jeff Wadlow (Truth or Dare), from a script he wrote with Greg Erb, Bryce McGuire and Jason Oremland, Imaginary tells the story of thirty-something Jessica (DeWanda Wise), who returns to her childhood home with her new family: husband Max (Tom Payne) and his two daughters from a previous marriage.

Jessica tries hard to be a perfect stepmother, but teen Taylor (Taegen Burns) is obnoxious to her, while young Alice (Pyper Braun) is just sad and lonely.

But when Alice finds a teddybear waiting for her in the basement, she seems to perk up, calling her new found friend Chuc… no, sorry, Chauncey.

I don’t think it’s much of a spoiler to tell you that, like Chucky in his evil doll movies, there is more to Chauncey than meets the eye. The supernatural element is the whole point of the story.

Acting wise, the movie is fine. Pyper Braun is a talent to watch, while DeWanda Wise has some great scenes as the troubled Jessica.

Overall, it’s a highly competent production. It’s not as inventive as M3gan, nor does it benefit from IP recognition like last year’s mega-successful Five Nights at Freddy’s, but it does sport the customary Blumhouse trademark of some decent scares on a reasonably priced budget.

The problem for me, however, is that the plot is relatively weak and hinges too much on the idea that Jessica is too traumatized by things that happened in her own past to correctly see that what’s going on with her daughter in the present.

Also, the fact that she is called ‘Alice’ frankly gives away that at some point the characters will enter some kind of (evil) Wonderland.

Visually, at least, that last part of the film is the most interesting, and some sequences are truly mesmerizing, but with a more fully realized screenplay the still pretty decent Imaginary could have been an even better movie.

Note: Imaginary is available to stream through various platforms like Amazon Prime Video, Google Play Films & Apple TV.