“The Monkey” Review
A toy monkey becomes responsible for an avalanche of hilarious death in “The Monkey”, Osgood Perkins’s adaptation of the Stephen King short story of the same name.
After making a big splash with “Longlegs”, director Osgood Perkins has quickly returned to cinemas with an adaptation of the Stephen King short story “The Monkey”. But if you were fortunate to have seen “Longlegs”, I don’t think you’d expect Perkins to make something as darkly comical as his next film. Instead of being full of intrigue and inducing dread, “The Monkey” is a lot of fun for horror junkies with plenty of creative kills and enough dark humor to satisfy those with the sickest senses of humor.
After inheriting a wind-up toy monkey from their father, twin brothers Hal and Bill (Christian Convery) discover that it’s an evil entity that kills someone every time it’s wound up and starts drumming. After many tries to dismember, destroy and abandon it, the pair think they’re finally free from the monkey’s grasp. Years later, as a now adult Hal (Theo James) tries to connect with his estranged son Petey (Colin O’Brien), Hal gets a call from Bill that the monkey has returned and needs to be stopped before more people die.
While the original Stephen King story is a straight-forward tale of trying to protect the future from the sins of the past, director Osgood Perkins expands upon this in one creative way: having a lot more people die. Since it’s only a toy, the monkey doesn’t actually kill its victims. Instead, the many people turned into corpses over “The Monkey’s” running time are met with freak accidents and there’s a lot of fun to be had with that premise. Perkins takes on this film with a strong sense of dark humor and I think that if you’re not laughing in the film’s first scene, then it’s just not going to be your kind of film.
In a wonderful dual performance, Theo James keeps things grounded. While Bill does appear in the film and talks to Hal over the phone, Hal is the central character of “The Monkey” and there’s much more emotional depth to his character than I was expecting. Wracked with guilt over the carnage the monkey has left behind, this series of tragic events has closed off Hal to pretty much everyone including his son. You find yourself rooting for this father/son relationship and hope it can mend if that damn monkey could just stop killing people.
“The Monkey” is primarily a dark comedy and, while the deaths may be intended for comedic purposes, the film is still capable of being unnerving at times. If you thought the toy monkey from “Toy Story 3” could be scary, that’s nothing compared to this ape from hell. Its design and the way its lit are enough to elicit strong nightmares if it weren’t for the fact that it can make people die in hilariously over-the-top ways.
Unfortunately, I found that the film’s strong emphasis on jokes did work against the third act where the more serious moments come into play. I don’t think anyone is underplaying it but when the climax of “The Monkey” is addressing the relationship between Hal and Bill and between Hal and Petey, it doesn’t have nearly as much of an emotional punch as the climax of “Longlegs”. Granted, I don’t think anyone is going to watch a film like “The Monkey” for the emotional arcs of its characters but I do think that this was one element of the script that could have been punched up. As such, I don’t think this trip from Osgood Perkins is going to have as much staying power as his previous film.
While not a complete triumph, I still found myself laughing hard at the antics of “The Monkey” and enjoyed the film for its twisted sense of fun. I believe that if you’re in the mood for a dose of comedy and decapitations, then this Stephen King adaptation is going to give you what you want. With another film called “Keeper” set to be released this October, it’s also clear that Osgood Perkins is not taking any kind of break and I can’t wait to see what kinds of screams he wants us to have next.
