Warning: Major spoilers ahead for The MonkeyOsgood Perkins’ new horror comedy The Monkey is adapted from a short story by horror icon Stephen King, and long-time fans of the author and his many cinematic/TV adaptations know that he routinely has small roles in those adaptations. Perkins’ follow-up to the 2024 smash hit Longlegs has a completely different tone, focusing on extremely gory and convoluted kills tinged with humor as opposed to a dark and haunting narrative. Starring Theo James in dual roles as a set of twin brothers, The Monkey is loaded with scary and violent scenes brought to life by an extremely game cast.
The ending of The Monkey is a veritable cavalcade of grisly calamity, with dozens of people meeting their end in creatively gruesome ways. With so many small one-off death scenes, The Monkey seems tailor-made for a memorable Stephen King cameo. Eagle-eyed viewers were undoubtedly on the lookout for King to be the victim of one of the split-second deaths, as in some past cases his cameo is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it visual gag, especially with King’s own glowing review of The Monkey.
Stephen King Does Not Have A Cameo In The Monkey
He Doesn’t Appear Anywhere In The Movie
Despite many opportunities for it, The Monkey does not feature a Stephen King cameo. King’s original story began as little more than a booklet before it was revised and added to his collection of short stories, 1985’s Skeleton Crew. With Osgood Perkins taking liberties to make it a comedy while in the process of extending it into a feature-length film, it seemed like a Stephen King cameo would be a given, especially if he could be placed in a role that would play on the movie’s humorous elements. However, King never does appear in the movie.
Stephen King’s History Of Movie Cameos Explained
The Writer Routinely Has Bit Parts In Adaptations Of His Work
Stephen King has had acting roles in at least 17 of the film and TV adaptations of his literary works, more often than not in a minimal, unimportant role in the greater scheme of the narrative. King’s roles have ranged from a pizza delivery guy (Rose Red) and bus driver (Golden Years) to the lead role in one of the segments of 1982’s Creepshow, under the direction of horror legend George C. Romero. King has also appeared in some shows that aren’t adaptations of his work, like his memorable cameo as the cleaner Bachman (after his pseudonym) in Sons of Anarchy.
The gory horror comedy seems like it would be the perfect fit for King to nail a humorous cameo, especially given how many five-second roles are in the movie.
One of the most interesting things about King’s cameos is that he has proven time and time again that he is a capable comedic actor. His minor roles are often based in comic relief. His role as Jordy Verrill, the backwoods schemer in Creepshow showed off just how funny King could be when committing to comedy, and many of his subsequent cameos have had a similar humorous edge. His ability to switch between sinister and silly is a major reason that he keeps being afforded the opportunity to appear in his adaptations.
The Monkey toy at the center of the movie was given a drum instead of the original clapping cymbals from King’s original short story due to Disney copyrighting the cymbal-style monkey for Toy Story 3.
That makes the lack of a cameo in Osgood Perkins’ latest movie somewhat baffling. The gory horror comedy seems like it would be the perfect fit for King to nail a humorous cameo, especially given how many five-second roles are in the movie. The Monkey is of course still a very entertaining, expanded adaptation of King’s original short story, but it would have been fun to see the writer in a short appearance.
