Movie review
February 14, 2025 · 97 min · R
Woke Score
Lower is better
Breakdown
These are the editorial factors and ratings behind our score for The Monkey.
Woke representation / casting
Casting centers on white actors in lead family roles that align with the source material; a brief supporting Latino priest appears in one rural comedic funeral scene with no identity emphasis or signaling.
Woke political dialogue
All dialogue stays on family conflict, fear of the toy, and the randomness of death with zero political or activist content.
Identity-driven story themes
Themes stay on inevitable death, brotherly estrangement, childhood trauma, and absent fathers through horror-comedy with no race, gender, or social-movement framing.
Western institutional / cultural critique
Shows dysfunctional single-mother household and deadbeat father through personal trauma and nihilism in classic King tradition but without activist reframing of patriarchy, masculinity, or Western norms.
Review
The Monkey is a 2025 horror-comedy in which twin brothers discover their father's old wind-up monkey toy, triggering a wave of gruesome accidental deaths that destroy their family. Twenty-five years later the cursed toy returns and forces the now-estranged brothers to confront it again. The film delivers over-the-top practical gore, black humor about random death, and family trauma in the classic Stephen King style with no visible identity politics or activist framing.
Woke character or canon changes
Adaptation adds comedic beats and dual-role adult casting but makes no ideological or identity-based changes to the 1980 source.
Anti-woke backlash and complaints
Sparse niche commentary flags isolated gags like the Latino priest or girl bullies, yet no broad public accusations of woke or DEI messaging.
Creator track record context
Stephen King at 27/100 for liberal statements but non-identity horror work; Osgood Perkins at 2/100 as horror purist; producers mostly 3–7/100 except one unrelated 18/100 diversity note.
Production
