Osgood Perkins’ wild movies make a lot more sense when you know his backstory
The Monkey showed audiences just how dark (and funny) Osgood Perkins and his work can be. It also made me realize that he is probably one of the best filmmakers to bring Stephen King stories to life. When you know more about Perkins though, you understand his work better.
Perkins is an actor, writer, and director. He’s starred in films like Psycho II as the younger version of Norman Bates (played by his father, Anthony Perkins). He directed some pretty twisted things and, most recently, he adapted Stephen King’s short story “The Monkey” into a feature length film.
As you watch The Monkey though, its themes on parents and the legacy they leave on their children is very prominently displayed throughout the film and when you look at Perkins’ own family history and comments he’s made in the past, it does really show in his work how that all played a part in the creative he is.
In past interviews, Perkins has talked about how he grew up watching movies he probably shouldn’t have. He spoke with Lauren Veneziani about being the house that all his friends went to growing up because his parents allowed them to watch horror films.
As someone who also was “that” house as a kid, I appreciate that part of Perkins as a filmmaker. But more than his own connection to movies and his family legacy there, movies like The Monkey become that much richer when you understand Perkins’ own family history.
Parents, upsetting deaths, and unpacking grief
Anthony Perkins died in 1992 when Osgood Perkins was 18 years old. He died of AIDs and it was a sad time for fans of Perkins’ work in the horror genre. Less than 10 years later, Osgood Perkins’ mother, Berry Berenson, died in the World Trade Center on 9/11. Those are two traumatic deaths that would weigh on anyone.
But when you know these facts about the Perkins family and look at The Monkey and the themes that Perkins presents in the film, it really is a fascinating study. King’s work, on paper, is often presented as a horror story but you can find deeper themes in his haunting tales. Which is what Perkins did with The Monkey.
The short story is very much a straight forward story of a cursed monkey and the boys who found it but Perkins’ take looks at the trauma of death on those who are left behind and I think it is a beautiful exploration of our relationship with our parents. When you know Perkins’ own family history as well as his connection to horror film, it all clicks as to why his take on this story really just works.
I’d love to continue to see Perkins take on stories like this and I do love how both The Monkey and Longlegs deal with grief and trauma and issues with the main characters outside of the “big bad” being presented to us. So I hope that we get to continue to see that growth in Perkins’ work.
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