Why is “The Monkey” rated R? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “strong bloody violence throughout, language throughout, sexual content/nudity and drug use.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes a brief sequence with a scantily clad exotic dancer in a club, a flirting scene, discussions of puberty in a sex education class, discussions of parenting, numerous scenes of death occurring seemingly by accident with the implication that they are being caused by a toy monkey and accompanied by torrents of blood and gore, several arguments, and at least 60 F-words and other strong language. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.

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After their mother’s accidental death, twin boys are sent to live with their aunt and uncle, and when more deaths occur the boys become convinced that a toy monkey is the cause of the mayhem. With Theo James, Tatiana Maslany, Christian Convery, Colin O’Brien, Elijah Wood, Rohan Campbell, Sarah Levy and Osgood Perkins. Directed by Osgood Perkins. [Running Time: 1:38]

The Monkey SEX/NUDITY 4

 – A woman takes two teen boys to a restaurant and the chef and the woman flirt with glances and smiles as he makes a pile of rice into the shape of a heart. A man watches a woman in an exotic dance bar and she bends over at the waist (we see her cleavage, legs to the hips and back).
► We see a video on a screen in a sex education class and hear a voiceover describing attraction to the opposite sex and physical changes that take place with puberty, accompanied by a 2D drawing of a male body with evident genitals. A man watches a woman wearing a bikini as she climbs onto a diving board and dives into a pool (we see her cleavage, bare abdomen, back, legs and partial buttock; please see the Violence/Gore category for more details).
► A woman complains about going on a blind date. A woman complains about finding a “stiff sock” in her sons’ room. A teen boy asks another teen boy if he’s “got the hots for that thing.” A teen boy goads another teen boy to say, “I wanna suck its banana” to a toy monkey. A man tells his teen nephew that he and his wife are “swingers.”

The Monkey VIOLENCE/GORE 9

 – A toy monkey raises its drumstick and brings it down against a drum resting in its lap; a rat on a shelf nearby chews a string that breaks and causes a spear to be shot into a man’s abdomen and when it is pulled back out, the man’s intestines are pulled out and across the room (we see bloody tissue and intestines) and he collapses, dead. We hear that a man was trampled to death by 67 wild horses and we see his remains poured out of his sleeping bag (blood and matter and goo are seen). A chef at a restaurant flips a sharp knife and slices a woman’s throat (we see a trickle of blood) and her head falls off onto a hot cooktop where it sizzles and spills blood (other people at the table scream). A woman’s head appears to be bleeding as she turns around to face her teen son and more blood spurts from her head when she collapses and strikes her head on the counter (we are told that it was a rare type of aneurysm). A woman carries a gun through a darkened house when she hears music playing and follows it to the basement where the light flickers and turns off, she climbs the stairs to get out, a stair breaks under her and we see her with many fishing hooks and lures stuck in her face (we see blood on her face as she pulls them out); she smells gas and leans over her stovetop when the burner is lit and sprays flames on her face and head causing her to run outside and become impaled on a yard post (blood sprays and we see the post through her head). A woman dives into a swimming pool that has become electrified by a fallen air conditioning unit and when she hits the water she explodes into pieces; one of her severed legs hits a man standing nearby and we see blood, tissue and matter in and around the pool. A woman opens a closet door, a shotgun tips toward her and fires, throwing her back into a room with blood splattering around the room and on a man standing next to her. A man is pinned under a running lawn mower and it grinds his head with a lot of blood splatter.
► A snake shoots out of a golf cup and attaches itself to a woman’s neck (blood pours). A man’s face melts when he is sprayed with coffee machine steam. A man smokes a vape and steps on a rake causing the handle to slam into his face driving the vape into his throat and he falls dead. A young man in a car shoots a hole through the windshield and into a hornets’ nest causing many hornets to swarm through the hole and into the young man’s mouth; we see blood pouring from his mouth, the hornets push through his flesh from the inside and eventually his face and jaw separate from his head. A man wrestles with a toy monkey, it beats on its drum very fast and then stops; we hear explosions and crashes outside and the man sees buildings engulfed in flames and a plane crashing in the distance as people scream; several dismembered bodies fall through the roof of a building (we see blood and matter). A cannon fires and blows a man’s head off with a bowling ball (blood spurts from his neck and we see the ball stuck in the wall behind him with his ears and other flesh around it). A woman is shown impaled by a surfboard as another woman runs nearby pushing a flaming baby carriage. A school bus filled with cheering people with their heads and shoulders through the windows is passed on a narrow road by a speeding truck and after it passes, we see the people have all been beheaded and the side of the bus is covered with blood.
► A young teen boy holds a bowling ball over his brother’s head (he imagines this) and drops it, crushing his head and face with a crack and spurt of blood. A man imagines a woman leaning over him and yelling as her eyes and head bleed profusely. A man sprays a toy monkey with a flamethrower and we see its face melt. A man has a nightmare about a toy monkey throwing him in a deep pit in the ground and cutting his head off. A teen boy turns a key on the back of a toy monkey and wishes that his brother was dead. A pawnshop contains many knives, guns and toys and a man wearing a blood-soaked shirt enters trying to sell (or return) a toy monkey and he seems afraid of it. A teen boy raises a cleaver over a toy monkey and hacks off one of its arms (we see the separated limb and some goo like blood); the teen then hacks at the monkey several more times cutting pieces off and he is splattered on the face with some more goo.
► A teen boy looks out a window after porch lights flicker and sees a toy monkey in the shadows. A man dressed as a police officer threatens a man with a gun. A teen boy crawls through the doggy door at a building and walks through stepping on a trip wire that releases a fireman’s ax that swings near him and sticks into the wall; the teen examines other booby traps and sees three swords hanging over stairs. A man sees a horse ridden by a man (seemingly a ghost) and it crosses the road in front of his car.
► A teen boy talks to his dead mother in a coffin at her funeral, asks her to wake up, and is saddened when she does not. A woman describes to her young teen sons how some people die by torturous acts. A few references are made to a newborn “eating most of my mother’s placenta.” People cheer when a body is carried out of a house on a stretcher. A man yells at his teen son and says that he was an accident.
► A teen boy tells a man that he can only have bowel movements in a house. A man tells another man that he urinated in one of his bushes.

The Monkey LANGUAGE 10

 – About 60 F-words, 2 sexual references, 28 scatological terms, 7 anatomical terms, 13 mild obscenities, name-calling (son of a whore, jerk, dumb kid, deadbeat, dumb, gross, stupid, killer, bad, weird, big fat baby, foul, lousy, mess, spaghetti city, freak accident, bad influence, idiot, evil, devil, man), exclamations (shut-up, wow, nice one, cool, oh mercy), 13 religious profanities, 18 religious exclamations (e.g. Christ, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Jesus [F-word deleted] Christ, oh Lord, God’s bowling strikes today, Holy [scatological term deleted], Amen, people talk about whether there is a “divine plan”). | profanity glossary |

The Monkey SUBSTANCE USE

 – A man drinks a beer, and a beer can is shown on an end table. A woman smokes a cigarette.

The Monkey DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – Murder, death, life, parenting, death of a parent, adoption.

The Monkey MESSAGE

 – Everybody dies, and that’s life.