'The Monkey' Was Inspired By The Simpsons

The best new horror film of the year was partially inspired by The Simpsons. #shorts #simpsons #thesimpsons #movie #themonkey #movies #youtubeshorts

Transcript

00:00Did you know that one of the year's best horror movies was partly inspired by The Simpsons?

00:04The Monkey, starring Theo James and Tatiana Maslany, is based on a 1980 short story by

00:09Stephen King and is all about a literal monkey. In this case, it's an antique,

00:12cymbal-playing toy monkey that causes those around it to suffer intensely gruesome deaths.

00:17According to director Osgood Perkins, the original script for The Monkey was dead serious,

00:22but he ultimately decided to play the film's over-the-top violence for comedy.

00:25And surprisingly, one of Perkins' key influences was The Simpsons.

00:29But not just the episode starring Mojo the Tragic Helper Monkey.

00:38In a recent interview, Perkins was asked about constructing the fictional world of The Monkey,

00:42which, by necessity, required an entire town's worth of potential victims. He said,

00:54That's true for so many people because it was such a fresh take on culture,

00:57such a fresh take on neighborhoods, towns, and people in your lives. If I could name

01:01anything as being the inspiration for the populace of The Monkey, it's Springfield.

01:05And The Simpsons' connections don't end there. Perkins has also compared The Monkey's gore-soaked,

01:10slapstick comedy vibe to the ultra-violent antics of Itchy and Scratchy. And The Simpsons overlaps

01:15with The Monkey in other ways, too. Stephen King's original short story was basically a

01:19modern riff on W.W. Jacobs' early 20th century story The Monkey's Paw, which, of course,

01:24was adapted for a segment of The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror 2.

01:27Something I don't like about that severed hand.