Let's break down the gruesome — yet surprisingly happy — ending of The Monkey

[Spoilers for The Monkey ahead.]

A campy, gory horror movie starring Theo James is as fun of a time as it sounds. The White Lotus actor gives a stellar performance in director Osgood Perkins' (Longlegs, Gretel & Hansel) film adaptation of Stephen King's short story, The Monkey. Theo pulls double-duty as both Hal and Bill Shelburne, the twin brothers haunted by the "Organ Grinder Monkey" toy that their estranged father (played by Severance's Adam Scott) brought home as a souvenier from one of his many travels as a pilot. Two Theo James' certainly does no one any harm, but seeing double — plus all the chaos that ensues in the movie — could lead to some confusion.

For the most part, though, we follow Hal's story as the nerdier, more reserved twin bullied by his own brother. The two have never gotten along, but were somehow bonded by the monkey and the trauma and baggage it brought into their lives in the year 1999. Twisting the key on the monkey's back only brought them tragedy via strange and gruesome deaths of the people closest to them — including their babysitter and their own mother. Trying to destroy the cursed object didn't work, which is why they decided to drop the monkey down a deep well where it couldn't escape and harm anyone.

But, of course, it's never that easy. The monkey comes back to haunt them 25 years later, which leads to the horrible and chaotic events that follow. Still, the movie ends in a somewhat hopeful note — which is not what you'd expect in a film that's full of bloody deaths. So how do things end for the two Theos? What happens to the monkey?

Why is the monkey back?

As we quickly learn from the movie, the monkey heeds to no rhyme or reason. It just does what it wants to, when it wants to. Marches to the beat of its literal drum. So why does it decide to come back and cause chaos 25 years after the Shelburne twins first find it? No one knows for sure. But its timing could not be worse.

The monkey reappears during the one week Hal has to spend with his teen son Petey (Colin O'Brien) before he's officially adopted by his stepfather (who, btw, is played by Elijah Wood). Its first victim is the twins' Aunt Ida (Sarah Levy). This throws a wrench in Hal's plans to go to a horror theme park as a last hurrah, and forces Hal to bring his son on his quest to find the monkey and get rid of it once and for all.

One Theo is "better" than the other

Throughout the first part of the movie, we don't really see Bill. We only hear his voice through his telephone calls with our main narrator and protagonist Hal. Bill is the one who calls Hal about their aunt's freak accident death, and informs him that the monkey is wreaking havoc once again.

Eventually, though, we do meet Hal's rebellious twin — basically Theo James with a mullet. And we find out that he's been holed up in an abandoned motel with the monkey, and is the reason why so many strange deaths have been happening in town following Aunt Ida's passing. Bill found the monkey by putting out an ad looking for it, and a local teen who found it at Aunt Ida's estate sale delivered. Since he got his hands on the monkey, he's been winding the key in the hopes that an unfortunate death befalls Hal.

Why does Bill want to kill Hal?

After their mother's funeral, Bill (unbeknownst to Hal) figured out that it was Hal that turned the monkey's key in 1999, causing their mother's death. Hal's intention was to kill his twin who bullied him mercilessly, but the monkey doesn't take requests and kills whoever it pleases.

Since putting the puzzle together, Bill's been trying to find the monkey and exact revenge on his brother. It wasn't until 2016 — the year of the monkey on the Chinese lunar calendar — that the monkey made its presence felt. Bill took this as a sign of destiny, that he was meant to wield the power of the monkey and kill Hal.

But, of course, that's not how things work. No matter his pleading with the monkey, and even when he asks Hal's son to turn the key, his brother never got hit. Instead, he unleashes large-scale chaos, and the whole town burns down to the ground.

Do the twins make up and survive?

When they see all the death that the monkey has brought upon the town, the brothers decide to put their differences aside and be there for each other. As Bill realises, Hal lost his mother, too. They have a brief, touching moment along with Hal's son... until of course the monkey strikes its drum one last time, and brutally kills Bill with a bowling ball to the head.

While the twins don't get to ride off together in the sunset, this whole experience at least brought Hal closer to Petey.

Is the monkey still around?

Because destroying the monkey didn't work, and neither did hiding it away, Hal decides that the best move is to...keep it. Which is definitely a risky choice, but it seems to make the most sense to him. He's accepted that the monkey is a Shelburne curse to carry, and that he and his son need to make sure it doesn't fall into the wrong hands.

The last scene shows the father and son duo sharing a tender, heartfelt moment and continuing on the open road. They stay safe in the car while everything else around them goes up in flames.

Was that the grim reaper?

As Hal and Petey drive off, they stop when they spot a pale, old, hooded figure riding a horse crossing the street in front of them. They make eye contact with the man as they let him pass, then carry on as if they saw nothing.

This symbolic scene directly lifts from Stephen King's short story, and we can deduce that the hooded figure was death himself. This might be read as Hal accepting death as a part of life and making his peace with everything that has happened. Of course, this is totally up to interpretation! Only the King himself knows for sure.