The Monkey owes it all to horror’s best franchise

The Monkey is in cinemas now, and while the movie is an adaptation of Stephen King’s beloved short story, the film also follows in the footsteps of truly great horror franchise.

Short story The Monkey was first published in the pages of Gallery magazine in 1980, before author Stephen King included it in his 1985 collection Skeleton Crew.

The story revolves around a wind-up monkey that Hal Shelburn finds in his father’s belongings during his childhood. Hal soon realizes that whenever he plays with the toy – and the monkey’s cymbals clash – somebody dies, a curse that follows him into adulthood.

Much the same story that is told in writer-director Osgood Perkins’ movie The Monkey, with one major alteration. To explain that, we need to go into MAJOR SPOILERS…

Final Destination walked so The Monkey could run

New Line Cinema

The kills in The Monkey movie are more shocking, strange, and elaborate than those in the source story, and the result is a film that feels more like a Final Destination sequel than a Stephen King adaptation.

For the uninitiated, Final Destination is one of the great horror franchises, if not the very best. Nightmare on Elm Street has the fantasy angle, with Freddy Krueger’s dream antics inspiring some pretty wild visuals. Scream has the mystery conceit, with the identity of the killer keeping audiences guessing until the final few reels. But Final Destination has “death” on its side.

That’s because the villain in the FD movies is the grim reaper, taking out those who escape their fate in the opening scenes. For the first movie, it was the survivors of a plane crash being systematically bumped off. In the second, those who cheat death in a highway crash are taken out. In three, it’s the derailing of a rollercoaster.

But Death doesn’t kill with a simple bullet to the head or knife to the heart. Instead, the reaping occurs via much more creative events that play out like deadly Rube Goldberg machines. This means multiple objects in a kitchen/gym/bathroom/tanning salon set off complicated chains of events that contribute to the unfortunate victim’s demise.

How The Monkey movie differs from Stephen King’s short story

There’s none of that in the King short story. Characters die by falling from a treehouse, being hit by a drunk driver, or getting shot by their boyfriend. These are tragedies, but far from freak accidents.

The movie takes the Final Destination approach, however. For example, in the opening scene, Hal’s father tries to offload the cursed object in a second-hand store. The owner doubts both his sanity and story, which is a big mistake as a chain of events starts up that ends with a harpoon entering said owner’s stomach, attaching itself to his intestines, then departing the body with those intestines attached.

More crazy deaths follow. An air conditioning unit falls into a puddle and electrifies the water, which leads to the woman diving into a nearby pool being electrocuted and pretty much exploding as she hits the water.

The most complicated death starts with fish hooks and rubbing alcohol, continues with a gas leak and flames, and ends with death via a ‘for sale’ sign. While my favorite features a gun, a car, an itchy hat, and hundreds of bees.

Indeed the only demise that really matches up is that of Hal’s mom, who dies through a brain embolism in the story, and because of a “boomerang aneurism” in the movie. However. even that expiration comes with an additional sting in its tail.

The result is a solid Stephen King adaptation that has fun with the creepy concept, while also telling a tale of absent parents and generational trauma. But the movie’s best bits are undoubtedly those crazy kills, making The Monkey a good horror movie, but also a great Final Destination flick.

The Monkey is in cinemas, meaning you can now check out our ending explainer, plus details of a bizarre Stephen King Easter egg. Alternatively head here for Dexerto’s list of best horror movies, and best movies of 2025 so far.