The Monkey takes childhood trauma to a new level in first trailer

Neon had massive success with Oz Perkins’ Longlegs partially on the strength of an offbeat marketing campaign; be it Maika Monroe’s heartbeat racing in fear or Nicolas Cage’s face obscured on billboards, everything was designed to communicate this shit is scary. Seems the studio is taking another crack at it with Perkins’ The Monkey trailer. Ahead of its release, the studio shared a partially redacted “trailer advertising report” designating which scenes could only be shown to R-rated audiences in theaters—and it seems like most of the scenes. Highlighted are selections like “Bowling ball smashing child’s face” and “Baby carriage on fire.” 

The titular toy is not, as one ill-fated woman puts it in The Monkey trailer, a “cherished childhood memory.” Instead, it’s the source of all trauma for our protagonists, twins played by Theo James. “When I was a kid, my twin brother and I found something that loved to kill. I did everything I could to make it go the fuck away. But it had other plans,” one of the twins explains in the trailer. “We have been chosen to witness its power over life and death in its most devious ways.”

The Monkey trailer is, as promised, a gory mess, enough to make even a priest exclaim, “Oh, fuck!” on the altar. In an interview with Empire magazine, Perkins teased “a lot of mess” and death set-pieces with “Rube Goldbergian connectivity.” But beyond similarly cheeky marketing, he said he feels “fucking great” about how different this film is to Longlegs. “I can’t think of another morbidly surreal horror comedy that’s also heartwarming and redemptive and stars a bona-fide movie hunk. That’s the best news I can offer to people who liked Longlegs—we make all kinds. Why would anyone want to be fed the same meal every day?”

Horror aficionado James Wan produced The Monkey, which was both directed and written by Perkins. In addition to James, the film also stars Tatiana Maslany, Elijah Wood, Christian Convery, Colin O’Brien, Rohan Campbell, and Sarah Levy. The film premieres in theaters February 21.