"The Monkey" Red-Band Trailer is Stephen King Come to Life at its Best

Come late February, 2025, Stephen King's The Monkey, a short story from the horror legend first shared to the public in the 80s, will make its silver screen debut, as many a King tale often, eventually does, regardless of age, exposure or even critical stature. Thankfully, The Monkey is one of King's most underrated or, at least, rarely explore gems, which makes it ripe for the picking not only from his deep manifest, but also for modern audiences seeking something that might feel fresh, but actually comes from a Golden Age of storytelling of this ilk.

Check out the red-band trailer here:

From Longlegs director, Osgood Perkins, and starring Theo James (Divergent), Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black) and Elijah Wood (Wilfred), the story follows two brothers who discover a wind-up musical toy monkey in their attic. Little do they know that each time the monkey strikes its cymbal unusual deaths occur, which leads to them to discard the monkey and part ways so as not to be associated with the trail of bodies in its cursed wake. Naturally, however, this is short-lived and after time apart the brothers must come together to dispose of the monkey and ride themselves and those around them of the curse once and for all.

As you can see from the red-band trailer above, gruesome as the premise is, it's all decidedly dark and black in humour with Osgood's lens perfectly placed over King's original tale. The fun part ought to be the creative ways in which this adaptation decides to do in its hapless victims, which gives us a bit of a Final Destination element to proceedings as well.

Currently Village Cinemas in Australia lists the film as releasing Thursday, February 20, 2025.