Inside Osgood Perkins’ Gory Vision: Blood, Guts, and a Touch of Humor in ‘The Monkey’

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Filmmaker Osgood Perkins shows courage, both figuratively and literally, when it comes to adapting Stephen King’s short story “The Monkey.” Instead of being cautious or sensitive in his approach, he chose to be bold. As he puts it, “You can’t concern yourself with offending an audience or honoring them too closely. There’s no pandering or timid storytelling involved – you have to have the courage to make it happen.” This applies not only metaphorically but also literally, as his team developed tools referred to as “guts cannons” and trucks filled with blood for gruesome and imaginative kills.

Perkins is stepping out of his comfort zone with this project, having previously excelled in creating discomfort through slow-burn, atmospheric films like last year’s successful “Longlegs.” The plot revolves around Theo James playing twins whose lives are haunted by a cursed wind-up toy monkey. If you wind its key, someone dies. Co-starring Tatiana Maslany and Elijah Wood, the film is a thrilling ride of gore and humor, but also offers a surprising introspection on trauma and grief.

Perkins is upfront about his own relationship with death; his father, “Psycho” star Anthony Perkins, died from an AIDS-related illness when Osgood was young. And his mother, actor Berry Berenson, died when she was a passenger on one of the flights involved in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. It’s given Perkins a perspective – and humor – that is evident in his film. “I’m certainly writing from an autobiographical place, given that I sustained some pretty insane kind of deaths in my life,” he admits. “I think that if I had written this movie when I was 29, it would have been pretty sad. But now that I’m 51, it’s a pretty funny movie. Time changes everything, it breaks it all down like a silt in a riverbed. If I was going to give a movie about death to an audience, I wasn’t going to hand them a bummer – I was going to hand a delight, an opportunity to shake it off and have a smile.”Perkins began his career as an actor, playing a young Norman Bates in “Psycho II”; he’s  perhaps best remembered as the awkward law student David in “Legally Blonde.” He does appear in a cameo in “The Monkey” as the weird uncle who takes in the twins after their parents’ deaths even though, by his own account, “I’m kind of a shitty actor.” (Those who have caught his clever promotional videos for “The Monkey” may disagree.) He pivoted into filmmaking with his 2015 debut “The Blackcoat’s Daughter,” carving out an admirable niche for himself in the horror genre with films like “I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House.” But it was 2024’s “Longlegs,” the indie thriller starring Nicolas Cage as an unsubtle serial killer taunting FBI agent Maika Monroe that made Hollywood take notice, grossing over $125 million worldwide on a $9 million budget.It was unexpected to the director, who felt he was making a very specific movie for people like himself. “The success of ‘Longlegs’ was a shock. It’s an offbeat movie and the demographic is for weird people,” he notes, largely crediting distributor Neon, which is releasing his latest film. “They were able to position it in a way that was like a work of art. I say it to them all the time: ‘I made the movie. You guys made the movie a hit.’ I don’t know how that shit happens, but for some reason it crossed over.”
What does that mean for the auteur’s career? “It’s changed everything and nothing,” he says. “It’s given me confidence, but it’s not like I’m going to run off and make a video game movie or an X-Men movie. I don’t think anybody wants that.” So what can people expect going forward from Perkins? “You can probably just expect more of the same from me, but just made better.”

One might initially presume that a larger budget equals better quality, but Perkins refutes this idea. He argues that a bigger budget isn’t the key to success and instead suggests there is an optimal balance. “The Monkey,” for instance, was produced with around $10 million. Perkins explains his approach, stating, “I’m going to get better. I’m learning how to collaborate more effectively with the talented artists I work with. I’m constantly learning and practice makes perfect.”

Perkins has mastered the art of creating suspenseful and unique deaths in “The Monkey,” though he isn’t entirely certain where his creative ideas originated. He says, “I had to make it all up. People often ask me how I do it, but there’s no secret formula or shortcut. I simply try to tap into the flow of things. Ideas aren’t generated by me; they flow through me.”

His creative process wasn’t limited by realistic constraints. “The movie leads with its heart, and it’s clearly a cartoon. Every death is completely implausible,” he notes. This may have helped him navigate the ratings board as he mentions there were no disagreements regarding the film. “I think it’s considered a work of fantasy. It’s hard to get criticized when you’re having fun.”

This freedom allowed Perkins to embrace the gory aspects of his production. When depicting an explosion, he researched the amount of blood in a human body and decided to exaggerate it. “We found out how much blood there was and I said, ‘Let’s use five times as much, seven or eight times as much.’ My special effects team would bring gallons and gallons of blood every day.”

Having adapted King’s work once, one wonders if Perkins will tackle any other of the author’s stories. He expresses interest in adapting “Creepshow” into an episodic anthology series. Despite this, he isn’t necessarily keen on working in television. “I was raised in an old Hollywood family where there was a clear divide between TV and movie people in the ’70s and ’80s,” he says. “Now it’s all one big mix.”

Perkins believes that personalizing a story is crucial for success. He states, “For me, the secret to getting anything right every time is making it about something I know. Then it feels valuable. Then it feels honest. And I think Mr. King can sense that honesty because he always writes from an honest place.

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2025-02-22 00:17