WithThe Monkeyreleasing to predominantly favorable reviews, there’s never been a better time to go back and look at the films that helped spur directorOsgood Perkinsto success.Stephen King’s book version of “The Monkey”is a more straightforward horror story than Perkins’ new horror comedy, andThe Monkey’s endingbears little relation to the original short story. Interestingly enough, previous films in Perkins’ career suggest he might have once written a more traditional take on the story, as his reputation definitely hasn’t been built on laughs.
Osgood Perkins’ films are mostly known for their incredibly striking visuals and often rather heavy themes. As evidenced by the caliber ofThe Monkey’s cast, Perkins also has a keen eye for talent. But while Perkins definitely has a few particular stylistic elements he leans on frequently,his directorial style differs in key ways from one film to the next. This leads to a number of great successes as well as a few visual and story beats that aren’t always quite as well-received.
I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House
Cast
I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House is a horror film directed by Osgood Perkins. The story follows a live-in nurse named Lily (Ruth Wilson), who moves into a haunted house to care for an elderly author suffering from dementia. As Lily becomes more familiar with the house, she begins to unravel its unsettling and ghostly past.
There are plenty ofhorror movies about isolation, but few evoke the aura of Gothic literature quite likeI Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House. The film focuses on Ruth Wilson’s Lily, a caretaker assigned to aging horror writer Iris. When Lily begins reading one of her charge’s old books, she comes to the conclusion thatIris was writing about an actual murder. The book’s subject, Polly, meanwhile continues to haunt the house as a ghost. It’s a fairly straightforward plot with a lot of room to expand. It’s also Perkins’ worst-received film, and for good reason.
Many of the critics accounting forI Am the Pretty Thing’s 59%Rotten Tomatoesscore take issue with the film’s thin plot and incredibly slow pacing. The movie’s entire story could be effectively told in a 10-minute short film, butPerkins’ script pads the runtime with deceptively shallow narration and attempts to build tension.Slow-burn horror moviescertainly have their place, with films likeRosemary’s BabyandHereditarystanding out as particularly worthy examples. But while the tension building in those films ultimately pays off,I Am the Pretty Thingends rather anticlimactically not long after Lily sees the ghost.
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On the plus side, there’s absolutely no denying the film’s visual beauty. Sets, wardrobe, and cinematography all blend together to bless the film with a deliciously gothic atmosphere.Pretty Thingis also the movie that establishes Perkins’ ongoing love for experimenting with the rule of thirds, a principle of shot composition that his prior filmThe Blackcoat’s Daughterplayed with to a slightly lesser degree.I Am the Pretty Thingmay be widely accepted as Perkins’ weakest film, but it’s nonetheless an important footnote in his evolution as a director.
Gretel & Hansel
Gretel & Hansel is a dark fantasy horror film directed by Oz Perkins. It retells the classic Grimm Brothers' fairytale, focusing on teenage Gretel and her younger brother Hansel, who embark on a perilous journey into a haunted forest. Sophia Lillis stars as Gretel, while Alice Krige plays Holda, a witch who lures the siblings into her sinister home. The film delves into themes of survival and dark magic in a visually eerie setting.
Perkins’ third film,Gretel & Hansel, is possibly one of his most difficult to assess. While it holds his second-lowestRotten Tomatoesscore of 63% (with an even more abysmal 23% audience score), it also gets a lot of things right that his previous films didn’t. The story is told more coherently, the actors are more expressive (albeit with distractingly unmatching accents for brother and sister), andGretel & Hanselboasts some of the most distinctive visuals of Perkins’ filmography. But despite a rather unique take on the classic story, the film’s plot ultimately falls miles short of its potential.
Setting itself apart from the majority ofhorror movies based on Hansel and Gretel, Perkins’ film establishes Gretel as a budding witch herself. Rather than taking the children prisoner outright,the evil witch in the film actually seeks to train Gretel’s powersuntil the two are set at odds on whether Gretel’s love for her brother is holding her back. There’s a lot that could be done with this premise. But rather than learn fromPretty Thing’s criticisms, Perkins again inflates the runtime with scenes that ultimately have little bearing on the film’s climax.
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There are also some issues with the film’s aesthetic. The production design and cinematography are beautiful, butthe shot composition often feels repetitive for its tendency to frame subjects in the precise center(and often from the exact same distance).Gretel & Hanselalso attempts to evoke the feeling of reading pages from a picture book by shooting in a 1.55:1 aspect ratio, despite going widescreen for the one scene that’s actually presented as an in-universe fairy tale. Perkins’ ideas aren’t entirely illogical, but the end result simply feels like watching a director try to feel artistic.
The Blackcoat’s Daughter
Girls Kat (Kiernan Shipka) and Rose (Lucy Boynton) are left alone in a Bramford prep boarding school during the winter holidays when their parents mysteriously fail to pick them up. While they experience increasingly strange events at the isolated school, the film shows another story - that of Joan (Emma Roberts), a troubled young woman on the road who, for reasons unknown, needs to get to Bramford as quickly as possible. As Joan gets closer to the school, Kat is tormented by increasingly horrifying visions.
Osgood Perkins’ directorial debut,The Blackcoat’s Daughter, was also his first Certified Fresh rating with 77% onRotten Tomatoes. Although it’s clear that he’s still getting his sea legs under him,Perkins’ love of heavy themes and discomforting shot composition both begin to present themselves here.The Blackcoat’s Daughterexamines grief through a horror lens by telling its story from the perspective of a possessed young woman who comes to yearn for her demon after a successful exorcism. It’s an intriguing idea, but the manner in which it’s presented can be a bit isolating for casual viewers.
The film’s characters rarely state what they’re thinking, which necessitates paying keen attention since the three main characters are all keeping secrets. This is most prominent in the final scene, which might lose viewers who don’t watch horror to engage in deep media analysis. That said,A24 horror moviesaren’t unknown for occasionally making the audience think, andThe Blackcoat’s Daughtergets a little stronger with every repeat viewing. Something as simple as a scene of Lucy Boynton (who would later play the ghost inI Am the Pretty Thing) passing a sleeping student grows in significance with every rewatch.
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Although the actors aren’t as expressive as inGretel & Hansel, this actually works in the movie’s favor. Boynton makes several subtle acting choices befitting a character trying to mask her fear of having her pregnancy discovered, andKiernan Shipka is the film’s trophy-winning tension builderwith an eerily unmoving gaze that makes it hard at times to believe the screen isn’t frozen. And given how the film’s shifting timeline factors toThe Blackcoat’s Daughter’s ending, Emma Roberts’ performance complements Shipka’s perfectly. The film’s execution is far from flawless, but it’s jaw-dropping as a director’s first outing.
The Monkey
The Monkey is a horror film focused on twin brothers who encounter a mysterious wind-up monkey responsible for a series of tragic events within their family. Twenty-five years later, the estranged brothers are compelled to face the cursed toy once again as it resumes its deadly rampage.
Viewers would never pegThe Monkeyas Perkins’ first foray into horror comedy, with the film delivering nearly non-stop laughs the entire way through. The film goes so off the rails that evenStephen King’s review ofThe Monkeystrikes a far more positive tone than his responses to past adaptations likeChildren of the CornorThe Shining.The film’s opening scene ends with Adam Scott wielding a flamethrower against an unmoving children’s toy, and things somehow only get zanier as the titular plaything causes increasingly ludicrous freak accidents everywhere it goes.
There will inevitably be comparisons betweenThe MonkeyandFinal Destination, but their themes couldn’t be more opposed. While the latter is all about escaping fate,The Monkey’s recurring theme is that life and death are irreparably unpredictable. The film’s first act delivers laughs nearly all the way through, but the theme arises when the comedy is interrupted by one heartbreaking death played completely straight. Every serious moment in the film traces back to this, and the performances by Theo James and Tatiana Maslany as his disillusioned mother balance the theme’s gravity with the film’s more comedic elements almost perfectly.
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Perkins doesn’t utilize his aesthetic prowess quite as much in this film, with most of the more intriguing visuals compacted into a single sequence following a predictable third-act twist. The script’s also not without issue.Characters such as an early scene’s funeral priest and a group of death-loving cheerleaders are ceaselessly hilarious, but they’re also so outlandishly unlike how any real person would behave that they don’t balance well withThe Monkey’s more down-to-earth moments. But for any flaws in execution,The Monkeystill earns its 80%Rotten Tomatoesscore with the surprising amount of heart beneath its comedy.
Longlegs
Longlegs is a horror thriller film by writer-director Osgood Perkins. When FBI agent Lee Harker is assigned to a serial killer cold case, their investigation leads them down a rabbit hole riddled with disturbing discoveries and the occult at the center of it all. When the trail of evidence reveals a personal connection, it becomes a race against time to prevent another murder.
AlthoughLonglegs’ tale of the FBI’s investigation into a seemingly supernatural killer didn’t earn Perkins his highest audience rating, it remains his biggest critical success onRotten Tomatoeswith a score of 86%. This isn’t entirely surprising given frequent comparisons betweenLonglegsandThe Silence of the Lambs, but the film stands on its own merit.Longlegscontains some of the most effective cinematography among any of Perkins’ films, along with a standout performance by Nic Cage that’s only complemented by the fact that his makeup design is somehow more unsettling that that of the witch inGretel & Hansel.
The script maintains wall-to-wall tension better than any of Perkins’ prior films. There are a couple of phone calls that initially feel like wasted screentime, but they ultimately set up a relationship dynamic that plays a prominent role inLonglegs’ twist ending. And between moments where Cage is almost too unhinged for words and the revelation that protagonist Lee Harker’s mom still hoards her daughter’s baby teeth,Longlegsisthe first subtle indication of Perkins’ comedic ability. And these moments somehow land even better against Maika Monroe’s straight-laced performance injecting anxiety into practically every scene.
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Perkins also accomplishes some of his best foreshadowing in this movie. EvenLonglegs’ opening quotehints subtly at the film’s final moments, andLonglegs’ religious symbolism is used much more effectively than inThe Blackcoat’s Daughterdespite the latter taking place primarily in a religious setting. Like every other Perkins film beforeThe Monkey,Longlegsis still very much a slow burn. But its story plays out so enticingly in almost every respect that it never actually feels slow. It’s an accomplishment one can only hopeOsgood Perkinswill be able to replicate in his future films.
Source: Rotten Tomatoes (I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House/Gretel & Hansel/The Blackcoat’s Daughter/The Monkey/Longlegs)
