The Monkey’s Funniest Death Is Borrowed From The Strangest Source

Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for The Monkey (2025)

Director Oz Perkins’ The Monkey might ostensibly be an adaptation of Stephen King’s short story, but the uproarious horror-comedy borrows one death from a much more unexpected source, The Simpsons. The Monkey is adapted from a short story in Stephen King’s collection Skeleton Crew. However, The Monkey changes King’s story significantly, turning the spare tale of a cursed toy into a twisted, blackly comic story of sibling rivalry. In Longlegs director Oz Perkins’ movie, twin brothers Hal and Bill Shelburne receive a cursed toy monkey from their absent father.

Whenever the monkey bangs its drum, a random person dies in a brutal, sudden manner. The Monkey’s ending reveals that this curse ends up shaping the lives of both brothers, with Bill trying to control the monkey while Hal does all he can to avoid it. All the while, people close to them are killed in increasingly macabre, cartoonish ways, succumbing to a snake bite on a golf course, getting decapitated by a lawnmower, and even swallowing an entire nest’s worth of live hornets.

The Monkey’s Dwayne Death Scene Is Borrowed From The Simpsons

Dwayne’s Death Mirrors Sideshow Bob’s Classic Rake Gag

While The Monkey’s bloodiest scenes are gruesomely hilarious, one of the movie’s funniest deaths is almost entirely bloodless. Near the end of Perkins’ movie, Hal speaks to his manager, Dwayne, on the phone. After Dwayne hangs up, he struggles to retrieve a vape cartridge from a vending machine. Turning around, he steps on a rake and swallows his vape pen, choking to death off-screen. As absurd as it sounds, The Monkey borrows one of its weirdest deaths from a classic episode of The Simpsons.

The Monkey’s ending brings back Sideshow Bob’s classic gag when Dwayne succumbs to his absurd fate.

In season 5, episode 2, “Cape Feare,” The Simpsons parodied Martin Scorsese’s Cape Fear remake with a story of the eponymous family relocating to a small town with the villainous Sideshow Bob in H๏τ pursuit. In one iconic sequence, Sideshow Bob unstraps himself from the underside of the Simpson family’s car after enduring a drive through a cactus patch. As if this weren’t painful enough, he steps on a rake immediately afterward and is struck in the face. For the next thirty seconds, Bob proceeds to stand on another eight rakes in quick succession.

The Monkey’s Simpsons Reference Highlights Its Best Unexpected Quality

Oz Perkins’ Horror Movie Is Far Funnier Than His Earlier Efforts

Although the writers of the episode later admitted that this sequence was just a way to pad out an episode that was a few seconds short late in production, the ridiculously lengthy gag went down in TV history as an iconic joke. The Monkey’s ending brings back Sideshow Bob’s classic gag when Dwayne, who only appeared in one short scene earlier in the movie, succumbs to his absurd fate. In the process, The Monkey highlights its greatest strength.

In an interview with Empire, Perkins admitted that he took plentiful liberties when adapting King’s source story. The Monkey is much funnier than any of the director’s earlier movies and far funnier than King’s own version of the story. This is its unlikely secret strength, as The Monkey manages to sneak in an unexpectedly profound, life-affirming message about facing death with a smile thanks to its surreal tone. The Monkey referencing The Simpsons might seem surprising, but it is perfectly fitting given the horror-comedy’s uniquely upbeat outlook.

Related Posts

What A Merger Between Two Centuries-Old Studios Would Mean For Hollywood

What A Merger Between Two Centuries-Old Studios Would Mean For Hollywood

Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. could end up merging into a single company. The ink has barely dried on the deal that combined Paramount with Skydance Media,…

Robert Redford’s Final Western Trends On Free Streamer Following His Death

Robert Redford’s Final Western Trends On Free Streamer Following His Death

The Horse Whisperer is trending on a free streaming service following Robert Redford’s recent death. Directed by and starring Redford, based on the 1995 novel of the…

This Week’s New Horror Movie Is A Big Test For Jordan Peele (Even Though He Didn’t Direct It)

This Week’s New Horror Movie Is A Big Test For Jordan Peele (Even Though He Didn’t Direct It)

Him poses an interesting test to Jordan Peele as a name in Hollywood. The filmmaker behind hits like Get Out, Us, and Nope didn’t direct the psychological…

10 Action Thrillers That Stay Perfect From Start To Finish (#1 Is 116 Minutes Of Pure Adrenaline)

10 Action Thrillers That Stay Perfect From Start To Finish (#1 Is 116 Minutes Of Pure Adrenaline)

Thriller movies are known for their edge-of-the-seat narratives that keep audiences guessing and in an eternal state of anxious suspense as stakes increase with every pᴀssing moment….

Wicked: For Good Surprising Runtime Revealed

Wicked: For Good Surprising Runtime Revealed

Wicked: For Good‘s runtime has officially been confirmed ahead of its wide theatrical release on November 21. The follow-up to 2024’s smash hit Wicked, the second half…

One Battle After Another Review: Leonardo DiCaprio & Paul Thomas Anderson Unite For A Virtuosic, Prescient Triumph

One Battle After Another Review: Leonardo DiCaprio & Paul Thomas Anderson Unite For A Virtuosic, Prescient Triumph

Back in 1956, when John Ford released The Searchers, the VistaVision format was merely two years old. A fine-grain film stock initially conceived as a counter to…