While the promotion for The Monkey heavily features director Oz Perkins’ hit serial killer film Longlegs, anyone who goes into it expecting a similar tone will get knocked for a loop. The adaptation of Stephen King’s short is bonkers; the kind of film that laughs with devilish glee at every insanely over-the-top slaughter. If you dig the tongue-in-cheek killings of Final Destination, this will likely be up your alley. But also like that long-running franchise, when The Monkey isn’t going bananas, the other stuff is pretty forgettable.
The opening scene sets the campy mood, as airline pilot Captain Petey Shelburn, played by Adam Scott in a funny bit cameo, enters a pawn shop, his clothes covered in blood. He tries desperately to persuade the disinterested owner to buy a wind-up toy monkey. In the book it’s much smaller, but in the movie it’s something you can’t miss. Its big furry head, a maw full of teeth, and over-large arms holding a drumstick and drum. It looks like a monster that should belong to an organ grinder. Petey warns the man that when it starts banging the drum, bad shit happens. He’s right, of course. The moment that drumstick hits, a random rat triggers a spear gun that impales the owner, only to be dragged out along with the man’s lengthy intestines. Fun!! No, really, the wildly gruesome stuff is when The Monkey is a blast, and you sit on the edge of your seat anticipating the next hilarious death.
While the toy monkey is definitely THE star of the show, Theo James holds up admirably well in a double role as Petey’s estranged kiddos, twin brothers Hal and Bill. Played initially by Christian Convery, the boys couldn’t be more different. Hal is the geeky, spectacled one while Bill is a bully and has been since they were in the womb. They find their dad’s toy monkey and set it loose, unaware of what they’ve done. When people start dying by insanely excessive means (the poor babysitter at the hibachi joint gets more than extra fried rice), they slowly start to figure out that the doll carries a terrible curse. She-Hulk‘s Tatiana Maslany has a solid role early on as their mother, who has refused to let her tough life beat her down too much, until life decides to throw a killer blow too much even for her.
The deaths pile up quick once the monkey returns 25 years later, and The Monkey is one of the most gruesome movies in recent memory. The fate of poor Uncle Chip (played by Perkins himself) at the hooves of stampeding horses is pretty epic, but there are others competing with it for the most twisted. The inscription on the monkey’s box says “like life”, and there’s something to be said about the indiscriminate, unstoppable way it kills. So yeah, a lot like life. Everybody dies.
When the massacres stop, though, The Monkey doesn’t have much to keep our attention. The ongoing feud between the estranged siblings isn’t much of a hook and doesn’t make much sense if you think about it too hard. Perkins doesn’t seem that interested in them, anyway, other than to get their reactions to the insane deaths happening all around them. While he’s improved of late, Perkins still isn’t the most exciting filmmaker around. The colors are dark and drab, as if attempting to inspire the same sort of menace that permeates Longlegs, but The Monkey is a decidedly more eccentric story and it doesn’t work. James is pretty sympathetic as the adult Hal, a sad sack with a son (Colin O’Brien) that he sees only once a year. Even with the kid hanging around not much changes. Hal keeps doing the same things, and oddly, bringing his son around the monkey which he knows kills the people closest to him. Whatever. Somebody wind that monkey up again already! That’s what we’re here to see, anyway.
The Monkey opens in theaters on February 21st.
