The Monkey Ending Is Way Darker Than Stephen King’s Original Short Story

This post contains spoilers for “The Monkey.”

Despite Stephen King’s reputation for having bad endings, there are some conclusions in his beloved works that have gone down in history, like the famous ending of “Carrie,” or the moving final moments of “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption,” which are largely recreated in their respective movie adaptations. But some film adaptations of King’s work have boldly diverged from the source material.

The renowned filmmaker Stanley Kubrick famously decided to scrap the ending of “The Shining,” forcing Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) to face a trial by ice instead of fire, freezing to death in a hedge maze rather than blowing up the hotel as King originally wrote. Now, years later, “Longlegs” director Osgood Perkins has also dared to wander off the King’s road with his adaptation of the 1980 short story “The Monkey.” What’s surprising is that somehow, the filmmaker has conjured a creepier climax wrapped in ambiguity and smoke that might even top the original. 

At the end of Perkins’ madcap picture that’s all about wiping people out in side-splittingly dark ways, Hal (Theo James) and his son Petey (Colin O’Brien) head down the highway following the death of Bill (also Theo James) with no certain route in sight. All they’ve got is a sliver of hope and a monkey in the back seat to deal with as the world seemingly begins to collapse all around them. The short story, while just as ambiguous, is far less morose than what we end up with. There’s also no additional detail of Bill, who doesn’t even exist in the original story about a monkey on the rampage.

In the short story, just like the film, there is a guy called Hal who has his father-and-son trip interrupted by the return of a cursed family heirloom. Playing cymbals instead of drums (because Disney wouldn’t want that), the monkey plagues the two, with Hal having no choice but to bag up the gift from hell with the intention to dump it in a lake. Setting out on a boat, Hal battles with the elements to try and get rid of the monkey, almost going down with the toy itself, whose cymbals can still be heard as it sinks beneath the water. All’s well that ends well, right? Well, terribly sorry folks, but this is a Stephen King read, remember?

A newspaper excerpt reveals that since the incident, large amounts of fish have begun rising to the surface, suggesting that the monkey is still playing solo and that the local wildlife is suffering because of it. While an effective ending, it’s pretty tame in comparison to the bizarre, apocalyptic finale we get with Perkins’ movie, so it’s understandable why the director dared to take things in a different direction. After seeing someone harpooned in the film’s opening and one version of Theo James lose his head in the finale, a lake full of fish may not have hit the spot. Well, not compared to a guest appearance from the literal horseman of Death and a high school bus full of decapitated cheerleaders, at least. 

To hear /Film’s interview with “The Monkey” director Osgood Perkins, check out today’s episode of the /Film Daily podcast:

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