Longlegs has become the horror premiere of the year. Although there are other movies like Late Night with the Devil or Immaculate that have managed to be big box office surprises, Longlegs far exceeds its expectations both in terms of critics and audience, and that’s even before it has been released throughout the rest of the world.
Part of its secret is the director, Osgood Perkins, who is also known for Gretel & Hansel and I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House. After this success, many wondered what he would do next, and it seems he already has it clear: a movie based on a book by Stephen King.
A monkey comes to see me
As reported by Discussing Film, the filmmaker will carry out an adaptation of The Monkey, a King’s story from 1980 that already has a release date: February 21, 2025. As the director himself explains, it will be completely different from everything he has done so far, and he describes it as more comedic and sentimental than the previous ones. The protagonists of The Monkey will be Theo James, Tatiana Maslany, and Elijah Wood.
Included in his collection of short stories called Skeleton Crew, The Monkey revolves around a mechanical toy monkey that plays cymbals and has a dark, sinister influence on the people who possess it. The protagonist of the story is Hal Shelburn, a man who, at the beginning of the story, discovers the old toy monkey in his mother’s attic. This discovery fills him with terror and bad memories, as Hal had found the same toy in his childhood and had realized that every time the monkey played its cymbals, someone around him would die.
The story, just like the movie It, alternates between the present and the past, gradually revealing how Hal had tried to get rid of the toy when he was a child, throwing it into a well. However, the monkey always came back somehow, and the deaths continued. It’s a story that blends terror and humor, but will undoubtedly be very well-received by Longlegs fans.
