Monkey Mouth is a gritty, haunting short screenplay that delves deep into the psyches of incarcerated individuals—men and women, Black and white—each connected by the shared language of violence, regret, and guns. Set entirely within the stark, flickering walls of prison cells, the film unfolds through a chorus of monologues, each inmate reflecting on the choices, traumas, and twisted justifications that led them behind bars.

Each prisoner, known in prison slang as a “Monkey Mouth”—someone who just won’t shut up—relishes the rare chance to speak. To them, a microphone is a prize. A camera is a confession booth. The inmates love to talk—constantly—and the film gives them that stage. They lean in, brag, cry, rationalize, and spin their tales with the raw charisma of people who’ve had too much time to think and too few chances to be heard.

We meet Inmate 73447, a weary narrator who sets the tone by separating the “sad” from the “tragic.” The film introduces a range of unforgettable voices: a fatally entitled killer who once shot up a party and then murdered his own family; a gun-obsessed misogynist entranced by both violence and vanity; a quietly broken older man born into addiction; a long-serving female inmate undone by a moment of panic; and a once-glamorous woman who used an AR-15 to destroy her picture-perfect life—and claims to revel in the freedom it brought.

Monkey Mouth is a raw and poetic interrogation of American gun culture, prison life, and the blurred line between fate and choice. In this brutal and honest chamber piece, every voice is scarred, every soul is sentenced, and every story is a mirror cracked with truth—and none of them can stop talking about it.