Monthly Dose of Horror: “The Monkey”, “Presence” and more

A quick look into four horror films released during the first two months of 2025.

Back in January, I had a lot of fun writing an article listing the bad horror films I had recently watched. That little experiment helped me cover many films that were not worth an entire article but could be good for some laughs. So I may or may not be transforming this into a new section.

This time around, I collected four horror films I watched during January and February (excluding Companion, which has its own article), with different degrees of satisfaction. Some are decent, and some are terrible.

The Monkey

Based on a short story written by Stephen King, The Monkey tells the story of young twins Hal and Bill, who discover a drum-playing toy monkey between their lost father’s belongings. However, the old-fashioned toy is the recipient of a curse, which causes random and horrific deaths every time the drums play. After a series of tragedies, the brothers agree to get rid of it, throwing it down a well.

But the monkey is not done with them: twenty-five years later, a new thread of deaths will force the now estranged twins to face the evil once more.

The Monkey is a strange mix of comedy and violence. There is plenty of gore, but most of these moments are presented in a comedic light. People are dying, but it’s funny. Sometimes it lands, sometimes it doesn’t.

Aside from that, the film is short and fast-paced, but with boring moments. Performances range from good to terrible. The actor that plays the twins as kids is pretty good, but the protagonist’s teenage son has only one expression.

Whether you can enjoy it or not may depend on how high your expectations are. It is not a movie I would watch again, but it was entertaining enough.

Presence

The Payne family, conformed by the parents, elder brother Tyler and younger sister Chloe, move into a beautiful house. They are unaware that there is someone already there: an anonymous entity, a “presence”, that keeps up with the family’s every move. During an hour and a half, we navigate the Payne’s life: the workaholic mother who favors her elder son, troubled Chloe, who has recently lost her best friend, and the stressed father, who is torn between his concern for her daughter and his thoughts of leaving his wife.

The presence takes a special interest in Chloe, the one who seems more vulnerable, and it starts to interfere to protect her.

It does not look like much, but this film introduces an interesting idea: everything we see is from the perspective of the “presence”. That is to say, the entire movie was shot in the first person. We are witnessing everything firsthand.

I was expecting Presence to be one of those somnolent experimental movies, but I very much enjoyed it. It did not bore me at all, even though I believe the first-person idea could have been exploited for a more in-depth plot. And I say this because the ending was a disappointment. Not as big as to ruin the whole experience, but I expected something different.

However, it is still my favorite film on the list and, overall, worthy of a watch.

The Intruder

I am not sure how I came to watch this obscure film, because there is almost no information online about it. I was initially convinced I had watched the trailer in the theater, but I am not sure if it was even screened where I live.

The plot revolves around Micheal, a man who moves into a big house he bought from his parents. During his first night in the house, he witnesses a hooded figure staring at him from the darkness of the hallway. From that night on, the events persist: he hears noises, the security cameras disappear, and the doors he locked in the evening are unlocked by morning. He is convinced there is an intruder breaking into his place every night. Overwhelmed by his nosy neighbors and the lack of sleep, Michael starts questioning his own sanity.

All this could go for an intriguing plot, but the movie kills your curiosity early with a slow rhythm and flat performances. The film’s only good moment is when the intruder is discovered (in the last ten minutes), but the lack of explanations around it ruins what could have been a very decent plot twist.

The Intruder is too long for the story it wants to tell, and plenty of things make no sense. If there was really a human intruder there, was the protagonist hallucinating half the time? How come the cameras were gone without the intruder being featured in any video? A supernatural experience or him becoming crazy would make much more sense.

Do not waste your time on this one.

Wolf Man

The film introduces us to Blake, a kid that goes hunting with his dad and witnesses the appearance of a strange animal-like creature. Over twenty years later, an adult Blake lives in San Francisco with his wife Charlotte and daughter Ginger. One day he is notified that his father has, at last, been declared dead after his mysterious disappearance years prior. The whole family drives to his childhood home to take care of the property and also as an attempt to fix Blake and Charlotte’s broken relationship with a mini holiday.

Before reaching their destination, they are attacked by a creature, and Blake gets injured. Their only option is to barricade inside the old house until they can get help. But Charlotte and Ginger soon realize that Blake has contracted some sort of infection due to his injury and that he is slowly transforming into something monstrous.

The only good thing I have to say about this thing is that some practical effects look very realistic; they did a great job with the protagonist’s impressive injuries. But at times, the wolf man looks kind of cheap.

The performances are not good. It is not like the actors have a lot to work with; the characters are so unlikable that I could not care less about their fate. Blake and Charlotte are typical millennial parents. Charlotte, in particular, is jealous of her husband’s connection to Ginger and spends most of the film looking at him with resentment. That is pretty much all their backstory. 

There are also these long and awkward pauses in some scenes, when characters just stare at each other, that are weird. A lot of nonsense. 

Let’s hope that March and April have some better horror offers.