Movie Review: The Monkey

...Jesus tap-dancing fucking tabarnak de câlisse de Christ.

If I come out of the theater swearing like that, it was either extremely bad, extremely good, or extremely memorable. The first and last rarely overlap; the last two, it's much more common.

The Monkey, directed by Osgood Perkins (who also made Longlegs, released last year) and released on February 21st, is a film adaptation of a short story by Stephen King first published in 1980 and then added to the Sketon Crew collection released in 1985. I talk a lot about games, movies and music on here, but I rarely mention how much of a reader I am - I got tons of books to get through, and Skeleton Crew is one of them. From what I've read about it, the stories in that one are particularly messed up, perhaps moreso than in other King short story collections I've read. Your... your life changes when you hear about Survivor Type. If you value your sanity, don't Google it.

Just in case you don't know what to expect from The Monkey, the tagline says enough: "Everybody dies, and that's fucked up". King himself loved it and described it as "batshit insane", so...

The story

Twin brothers Bill and Hal (both played during childhood by Christian Convery) grew up without their dad, a world traveler who up and left one day, leaving behind a treasure trove of souvenirs from his trips. The brothers have a strained relationship with each other, with Bill behaving very much like a bully to his younger brother. Digging through the souvenirs, the brothers find a blue round box containing an antique drum-banging monkey toy. "Turn the key and see what happens", says the box. Well, they do, and since nothing happens, they dismiss the thing as broken.

That evening, the monkey is with them in the car as they leave to a restaurant with their babysitter. It very belatedly bangs its drum, and someone dies a gruesome death in the place. Following that, any time the monkey's key is wound, someone near the boys dies. Generally in some way that's possible, but horrifying and highly unlikely.

25 years later, Hal (he and Bill are once again played by the same actor, Theo James this time) tries his best to live his life. The monkey hasn't been heard of in a long time, but its killings have deeply affected the younger brother. He has an estranged son he barely sees, out of a fear of getting attached to anyone in case it returns.

And just the exact weekend Hal is seeing his son for what could well be the last time, the monkey returns. And in force, as the town they're in suffers from an epidemic of messed-up deaths all happening in a short timespan. Clearly, someone has the monkey, and is happily using it over and over. But who? And should Hal even go looking for it, considering the damn thing ruined his and his brother's lives?

The review

Full-on a horror comedy, The Monkey wears proudly its "fucked-up"ness on its sleeve. Aside from the poster taglines, videos published at the end of 2024 had Perkins happily list various forms of gruesome death from the film - eviscerations, electrocutions and exsanguinations, just to name a few - and some of the, ahem, implements used in those events - a harpoon gun, a lawnmower, fish hooks... Lists spoken with something of a sadistic glee in the eye.

The film doesn't take itself too seriously; the deaths are so over-the-top that they're meant to be funny in general, in that "black comedy" type. Jesus, some of those go FAR. The comparison has already been made with the Final Destination series, one of my favorite horror franchises ever, and yeah, I can see the similarities. However, the more blatant turn for comedy with The Monkey sets it apart in that regard. That, and the rules to its horror, which are much different, though telling them would spoil major elements of the plot.

It helps that the actors do a great job with their roles. The story... while great, it's so caught up in the absurdity of its premise that it often veers into further absurd outside of the big horror setpieces, probably to justify its status as a comedy. Yet, in there, you can still hear an attempt at discussing themes like the pointlessness and randomness of death. Perkins had fun with it, as one can tell from several sequences akin to dreams or acid trips - some of which are, indeed, used as misdirects in promotional material.

Let's just say, it gets bloody. If you're in on the joke, you'll have a good time. It's a wild ride all the way to the final seconds, and though it doesn't have the commentary other standouts of the horror (or, Heck, horror/comedy) genre have had these past few years, it's still a fun one to check out.