The cinema is dark and full of terrors, and dangerous to go alone. Don’t fret! The Cinematic Schematic is here to be your light in the darkness of 2025 horror movies. We review several of the most discussed horror or horror-adjacent movies so far, including The Monkey, based on Stephen King’s short story.







Death has come to these cohosts



Hosts Caleb Masters and Laron Chapman can’t face the 2025 horrors alone. First-time special guests and genre enthusiasts Kirsten Therkelson(Femme Film, GoodTrash Media) and Brett Grimes (Grind Planet Double Feature) join The Cinematic Schematic to face our fears of mediocre movies.



Left to Right: Kirsten Therkelson, Laron Chapman, Brett Grimes, and Caleb Masters







2025 Horror (So Far) Movie Review Round-Up



In this week’s special 2025 horror round-up episode, we’ll do quick spoiler-free reviews of the following movies:




* Presence – Listen at 4:12



* Companion Listen at 20:10



* Heart Eyes – Listen at 42:13



* Wolf Man -Listen at 58:47




The Monkey Spoiler-Free Review



Time Stamp: 1:18:19



The feature presentation of this special horror-centric episode is a review of one of the year’s biggest horror-comedy hits, The Monkey, from Longlegs director Osgood Perkins.



We talk about several topics in our spoiler-free section, including:




* Our overall thoughts on The Monkey



* What the film brings (or doesn’t) to the horror-comedy genre



* How the film stacks up against the director’s other films



* Letter grade verdicts



* Alternate media recommendations.




Has the director caught onto something special, or is this black humor juvenile violence disguised as commentary?







The Monkey Spoilers Discussion



Time Stamp: 1:50:25



After providing our verdicts, we go to the sunken place of Osgood Perkins’s mind by talking about spoilers. What’s the director getting at with all of the comedic deaths?



The main topics we cover include:




* Death is Coming For All of Us…Enjoy the Ride?



* Is director Osgood Perkins a budding horror auteur or a flash in the pan? 








Special Guests







Brett Grimes



Co-Founder of GrindPlanet











Kirsten Therkelson 



Co-Host of Femme Film







About The Monkey



According to IMDB, The Monkey is described as:




When twin brothers Bill and Hal find their father’s old monkey toy in the attic, a series of gruesome deaths start. The siblings decide to throw the toy away and move on with their lives, growing apart over the years.














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