Courtney Howard // Film Critic
Director: Osgood Perkins
Starring: Theo James, Colin O’Brien, Tatiana Maslany, Rohan Campbell, Elijah Wood, Sarah Levy, Adam Scott
Osgood Perkins knows exactly how to create a tense, unnerving atmosphere having done so in his previous features, THE BLACKCOAT’S DAUGHTER, I AM THE PRETTY THING THAT LIVES IN THE HOUSE, GRETEL & HANSEL and LONGLEGS. But after four serious, dread-soaked tales the house precious little room for levity, it’s a goddamn riot to see the auteur embrace gallows humor with his slick, stylized and sadistic fifth film, THE MONKEY. And it fucking cooks! Adapting Stephen King’s short story about a possessed plaything two brothers unwittingly inherit (a metaphor for generational trauma!), Perkins goes fittingly bananas, setting up gnarly, gleefully fresh thrills and kills. It’s an outlandishly demented coked-up ride.
Tween twins Hal and Bill (Christian Convery) have never really gotten along. Arrogant blowhard Bill, being slightly older by minutes, always has bullied nerdy doormat Hal. Things come to a head once the two discover a wind-up circus monkey toy. Once the last drumstick falls on its drum, banging along to a jovial calliope ditty, someone dies in a gruesome fashion. In the prologue, their dad Pete (Adam Scott) tried to sell and destroy it, but to no avail: the toy magically reappears. This has caused him to abandon his no-nonsense wife Lois (Tatiana Maslany) and young sons. And after Hal tries to command it to kill his brother and offs their mom instead, the malevolent monkey teaches the kids that it chooses its victims indiscriminately.
Decades later, Hal (Theo James) is living a solitary life. He needed to isolate from the traumatizing events in his past, leaving behind the monkey, hidden deep inside a closet in his Aunt Ida’s (Sarah Levy) home. He’s taken over-precautions in his life – essentially abandoning his own teen son Petey (Colin O’Brien) as his own father did to him – to ensure estrangement will provide relief. It doesn’t. The monkey is awoken one night, ruthlessly offing Aunt Ida and setting in motion dastardly events. Bill, now worse menace in their hometown than ever, even forces his way back into Hal’s life while on his final weekend visitation with Petey. It’s then the onus is shoved onto Hal to finally deal with his past to set his present on the right track.
Perkins innately knows how to coax the tension out of the murderous mayhem and strike with tension relief humor exactly at the right time. He constructs these cackle-inducing sequences like streamlined Rube Goldberg machines akin to the FINAL DESTINATION franchise demises. No matter if it’s a random person or supporting character dying, the kills are clever and crowd-pleasing. From the pawn shop gutting, to the motel pool diver’s electrocution, the moments after, where the camera lingers longer on the blood and guts spilled, is where Perkins brings out the dark comedy of these sticky situations. There’s even a payoff in the 3rd act to a joke that began early in the 2nd, that’s so delightfully macabre it should feel at home in a Tim Burton movie.
The visionary filmmaker is clearly grappling with his own familial traumas within the story’s greater context, having dealt with grief surrounding his own mother and father’s respective deaths. Themes ruminating on deadbeat dads and fatherhood resonate. The film’s “Everybody dies” tagline is a bleak eventuality we’re confronted with early on, acting as an achor to moor the outlandishness to something solid. A montage of inventive deaths speeds by quickly to give gorehounds their dopamine hit of stomach-churning gruesomeness. James narrates much of the journey to flavor the proceedings with King’s prose. Fans will also be pleased to spot an allusion to another one of the author’s character creations (hint: listen for the twins’ babysitter’s full name).
Things Perkins sets up don’t always work to their most effective capabilities. Hal’s journey seems to be that he’ll stop being such a pushover, yet his arc doesn’t manage to pull that off. The narrative momentum slows down a tad too much during the more sentimental, introspective sequences. A side quest with stoner loser Ricky (Rohan Campbell) doesn’t really manifest in anything but new nightmare fuel with his inevitable horrific death. He singularly represents someone hoisted by their own petard and nothing more.
James’ deadpan delivery in his dual role is impressive. He effectively taps into his characters’ exhaustion, fear, insecurities, and loneliness, gifting the brothers with a defining sense of delineation, depth and dimension. While cast in a supporting position, Maslany’s presence looms large, woven throughout the picture. She leans comfortably into the horror-comedy of it all and nails the right tone.
THE MONKEY opens in theaters on February 7.
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