Longlegs director says he's going to the "extremes," says we can expect "explosive gore" with new Stephen King adaptation: "There’s a lot of mess"

Longlegs director Osgood Perkins says The Monkey is going to be an over-the-top gorefest - and we're here for it.

"If you’re going for comedy then you're going for extremes. Not subtlety," Perkins told Empire. "We are guilty of putting far more blood in our human bodies than is really in a human body. When someone explodes in this movie - and a couple of people do - there's a lot of mess. All the death set-pieces were hard to do. They all have a Rube Goldbergian connectivity - this happens, then this happens, then this happens..."

The movie, based on the Stephen King short story of the same name, follows two brothers named Bill and Hal (both played by Theo James) who find a cymbal-banging monkey toy belonging to their father in the attic, starting a chain reaction of gruesome deaths. The brothers discard the monkey and go their separate ways, but are forced to reconcile years later when a series of inexplicable deaths begin to occur. The brothers set out to destroy the monkey once and for all.

The cast includes Tatiana Maslany, Elijah Wood, Christian Convery, Colin O'Brien, Rohan Campbell, and Sarah Levy. James Wan is producing the pic under his Atomic Monster banner.

Perkins also says he feels "honestly feel fucking great" about how different The Monkey is from Longlegs, describing it as a "morbidly surreal horror comedy that’s also heartwarming and redemptive and stars a bonafide movie hunk." We're ready.

The Monkey hits theaters on February 21, 2025. For more, check out our list of the most exciting upcoming movies, or, skip right to our list of movie release dates.