Whether you enjoy it or not will largely hinge on if its idiosyncratic tone works for you. It bets big on the humour but I didn’t find it funny most of the time.
Fresh off last year’s critical and commercial hit Longlegs, director Osgood Perkins is back with another horror film. This time he’s bringing a feature length adaptation of Stephen King’s short story The Monkey to the screen.
This film follows twin brothers Bill and Hal who find their father’s old toy monkey in the attic. Soon after a series of gruesome deaths occur which are linked to the mysterious toy.
The Monkey is a peculiar film for a number of reasons. I can understand most of its intent but it wildly misses the mark. It’s a horror comedy but whether you enjoy it or not will largely hinge on if its idiosyncratic tone works for you. It bets big on the humour but I didn’t find it funny most of the time and it even started to grate on me a little by the end.
The key appeal of this film is the death scenes. When the Monkey toy is wound up, it will bang its drum and shortly afterwards someone will die in an extreme manner. If there’s one thing this film needed to get right, it was these moments. It’s a simple conceit that should lead to some glorious moments of violence akin to what you witness in films such as Final Destination. There’s some inventive deaths but they don’t have much impact and most of them prioritise CGI over practical effects, which means there’s nothing admirable about them technically and even at times visually. It reminds me of the cartoonish approach The Final Destination had with its death sequences. I understand the over the top nature of the kills in The Monkey is the point, but they could’ve been handled better and been more memorable. I was surprised there wasn’t more death scenes throughout the film as well.
The Monkey feels disjointed and it never really gets the ball rolling on its concept in an exciting way. The story is flat and it was apparent to me in the first act, that it was struggling to present a narrative that I could get invested in. The theme of absent fathers is woven within this story but nothing satisfactory was done with it and it doesn’t have much to say about loss either. The script doesn’t know what to do with its central concept and how to expand this short story into a feature length film. As a result of this it ends up feeling like what would’ve been a good short film, stretched out to feature length with a lack of ideas.
None of the characters are interesting or even likeable. Having likeable characters isn’t an absolute requirement but if you’re going to have characters who aren’t, then they at least need to be compelling and that wasn’t the case here. Theo James is a serviceable lead as Hal. Many actors could’ve occupied this role and some of them would likely do better with it, despite the shortcomings due to the writing. There’s an aspect to his role which I won’t spoil, but I didn’t like the direction of it and I felt that brought down his performance as a whole. Tatiana Maslany portrays his mother in this story and her character had a sense of whimsy about her which at least brought some form of energy to the screen. Her performance was the best at connecting with the tone this film is going for, it’s just unfortunate that her screen time is limited due to a time jump. The Monkey really needed more of what she was able to bring to it. Colin O’ Brien portrays Hal’s son Petey. Hal has a fractured relationship with Petey and Colin was able to convey that friction rather well.
This is Osgood Perkins’ most conventional looking film. All of the style and splendour that I would associate with his previous work is missing here. The atmosphere, the meticulous direction. None of it is present. If I didn’t know already, I wouldn’t be able to tell this was directed by him. Longlegs has the stamp of an auteur horror filmmaker, The Monkey looks like it could’ve been directed by anyone. A film such as this should be a blank canvas for a director to inject a lot of style and personality. I was baffled to discover that The Monkey lacks that.
Simply put, The Monkey is the biggest disappointment of the year so far. Outside of a couple good death sequences, it has nothing to offer. It leans fully into comedy but misses the mark, whilst never attempting to be scary or disturbing.
★ ★
This review was written by Terrelle Graham.
The Monkey. Starring Theo James, Tatiana Maslany, Rohan Campbell, Elijah Wood and Colin O’Brien. Runtime 98 minutes.