Unpredictable

Keeper (2025) - Perkins As in his other films - Longlegs, Monkey, Grethel and Hansel, Osgood Perkins has a penchant for creating dread with eerie images, this cabin in the woods movie is no exception. From the get-go, even before the ill-fated couple Liz (Tatiana Maslany) and Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) arrive at the handsome, all-windows-n-angles modern log cabin, we see the glimpse of various women and their eventual fate in a series of striking portraits.

Once we are in the cabin, Liz feels an ominous presence in the dark corners and shadows. Maybe this trip upstate with someone she doesn't know well enough, for a city rat like Liz, wasn't a good idea. There's a cake in a box with smudged fingerprints sitting on the kitchen counter. It's from a caretaker Malcolm says, off-handedly. An unexpected, awkward visit from Malcolm's asshole brother with his Eastern European girlfriend, leaves Liz a little more rattled. After eating the whole chocolate cake in the middle of the night, creepy things start happening and Liz doesn't really know if they are dreams or real.

Malcolm is called off for his job as a doctor into the city, leaving Liz all alone. She is haunted by the vision of the women seen in the beginning of the film as well as feeling that she is not alone in the cabin.

The images Perkins and DP Jeremy Cox (Monkey) are truly unsettling. The creatures are extremely creepy and the competing saturated color palate is beautiful and dark and very effective for the location. Some transition shots are stunning, comparable to that of Park Chanwook even, the king of transition shots. Love his play with background and foreground perspectives also. Keeper develops into a delicious folk horror territory, but not a clearly defined plot. And like other Perkins films, narrative thread is not the selling point, but atmosphere is and unsettling images are. This film has a lot of that.

Maslany, who has one of the most interesting faces in cinema and serves as one of the executive producers of the film, is all game for a small cast and one location, atmospheric horror. Her natural delivery and demeanor, her quick wit is highlighted in basically a one woman show. I can see if it won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I loved it.

Spanking the Monkey

The Monkey (2025) - Perkins Bespectacled Hal gets bullied around in school, also by his twin brother Bill at home. The twins live with their single mother (Tatiana Maslany). It's the 90s. They find a windup toy monkey left by their absent father (Adam Scott, shown briefly in the beginning, blow torching the monkey). When the monkey gets winded up, people around it die in some horrible accidents. After their mom dies of brain aneurism (because of the monkey), Hal chops up the monkey and throws it away. After the twins get adopted by their aunt and uncle and move to Maine, they find that the monkey has followed them. It doesn't matter why monkey chose them. It just is. Uncle with the impressive lambchop sideburn (played drolly by Perkins himself) dies first, stampeded by band of horses in a sleeping bag while camping, then twenty five years later, aunt dies horribly too. After many more highly inventive kill offs with many of the population in town dead, Bill and Hal need to finish the job of destroying the monkey, if they could. If not, they will need to learn how to live with the monkey.

If Osgood Perkins's Longlegs left you scratching your head in dissatisfaction, as it walked the tight rope between being a psychological horror and a comedy, please give him another chance with The Monkey, an all out horror-comedy that will wipe off your doubts about his talent as a filmmaker-to-watch. Perkins has a very peculiar sense of humor, to say the least. And his take on Stephen King's short story is an unabashedly slap-sticky, full on gore-fest that doesn't take itself too seriously.

Just like Longlegs, the pace of The Monkey is breezy. It progresses too quickly for us to question what's happening or why. And it's a good thing. Soon you realize that the narrative doesn't really matter. It's all just vibes. Theo James, playing both Hal and Bill, is eagerly along for the ride and keeps the serious face the whole time. Maslany hamms it up to match the film's weird vibe. All the peripheral characters - Hal's boss at the hardware store, the rookie priest, Elija Wood's creepy self-help guru, Perkins's uncle Chip and the tiny Asian girl bully all enhances to the truly peculiar vibe of the movie.

The Monkey is not necessarily the movie that we asked for, but the movie we need in these dark times.