Joey’s Home Movies For the Week of June 23rd – Beware ‘The Monkey’

Welcome back to my Home Movies! This week, there’s double Osgood Perkins action hitting shelves. His latest film The Monkey is being released, while last year’s Longlegs is getting a 4K SteelBook edition. So, if you dig on Perkins like I do, today is a good day. The slate also includes Novocaine, a ton of other 4K re-releases, as well as a pair of new Criterion Collection debuts. Read on for more…

Joey’s Top Pick

The Monkey

The Monkey is one of the most fun times I’ve had at the movies this year. Is it dark and messed up? Of course. Is that gore and violence at hand being mined for something a little deeper, provided you care to look? It’s Oz Perkins, so that goes without saying, folks. The flick remains one of my favorites so far this year, so take it as high praise that I still think this is an absolute riot. I spoke to Perkins and star Theo James here about both the fun of it all, as well as the deep seated issues at play, so give that a look. My rave review here on the site began like so:

When you get on a film’s wavelength, no matter what kind of a work it is, there’s a feeling that’s hard to beat. Especially when it’s an out there horror movie, you’re so attuned to the possibilities, anything that happens is a delight. In the case of The Monkey, the opening scene so perfectly sets you up for what’s to come, that you’re just excited to be along for the ride. This flick is such a good time, savagely funny and savagely gory in equal measure, it’s one of the best horror comedies in some time. 2025 is off to a hell of a year, horror wise.

The Monkey is incredibly different from Longlegs, the prior film from Osgood Perkins, but it’s just as clearly evidence that he’s a master of horror. This shows that he can go funny, which is a new exercise for the filmmaker. It’s a movie with a real devilish sense of humor. Sure, some folks may not be able to vibe with what he’s doing, but if you love horror, as well as genre works on the whole, this is an absolute riot that will shock you in all of the best ways.

Also Available This Week

A Minecraft Movie

Back to the Future: The Ultimate Trilogy (Blu-ray)

Bring It On (4K)

Dark City (4K)

Destroy All Neighbors (TV)

Doctor Who: Season One (TV)

Eephus

Free Willy (Blu-ray)

JFK (4K)

I Know What You Did Last Summer (4K)

Lethal Weapon (4K)

Longlegs (4K SteelBook)

Novocaine

Palindromes (4K)

Sleeping Beauty (Blu-ray)

Snow White

St. Elmo’s Fire (4K)

Criterion Corner

Sorcerer

From The Criterion Collection: “A hallucinatory journey into the heart of darkness, William Friedkin’s pulse-pounding reimagining of the suspense classic The Wages of Fear was dismissed upon its release, only to be recognized decades later as one of the New Hollywood’s boldest auteur statements. In a remote Latin American village, four desperate fugitives—a New Jersey gangster (Roy Scheider), a Mexican assassin (Francisco Rabal), an unscrupulous Parisian businessman (Bruno Cremer), and an Arab terrorist (Amidou)—take on a doomed mission: transporting two trucks full of highly explosive nitroglycerin through the treacherous jungle. Aided by Tangerine Dream’s otherworldly synth score, Friedkin turns each bump in the road into a tour de force of cold-sweat tension—conjuring a hauntingly nihilistic vision of a world ruled by chance and fate.”

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Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould

From The Criterion Collection: “A rare film biography as boldly unconventional as its subject, writer-director François Girard’s visionary portrait of iconoclastic, world-renowned pianist Glenn Gould explodes the conventions of the form to illuminate the brilliant mind and innermost obsessions of a singular artist. Across thirty-two vignettes encompassing everything from dramatic sketches to documentary interviews to avant-garde animation, Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould pieces together the story of Gould’s trajectory from child prodigy to celebrated concert pianist who turned his back on public performance to pursue his all-consuming fascination with recording technology. Led by a tour-de-force performance by Colm Feore and underscored by Gould’s landmark recordings of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, Girard’s film daringly deconstructs the enigma of genius.”

Stay tuned for more next week…