Early on in The Monkey, twin brothers Hal and Bill (both played by Christian Convery) rifle through their dad’s closet. It’s been a year since their dad had mysteriously disappeared, leaving their embittered mom (Tatiana Maslany) left to raise the two boys on her own. The two boys try to piece together the memory of their father from the things he left behind — his pilot’s cap, and some postcards — but they’re mostly left puzzled by a strange toy monkey found in a box simply titled “Like Life.” It’s a scene that writer-director Osgood “Oz” Perkins might have lifted out of his own life — aside from the cursed toy monkey, of course.
“[My father’s] stuff, his closets, his areas, his drawers were endlessly compelling to me,” Perkins tells Inverse. “What can I discover about this person? And so, just the idea that you can pull this story out of a closet literally was the way in.”
