THE MONKEY Reviewed by GREG KING
Director: Osgood Perkins
Stars: Theo James, Tatiana Maslany, Christian Convery, Colin O’Brien, Elijah Wood, Sarah Levy, Rohan Campbell, Osgood Perkins, Adam Scott, Danica Dreyer, Nicco Del Rio, Shafin Karim.
This enjoyable blackly comic splatter horror film is another film featuring a possessed killer toy, a subgenre that has included films such as Child’s Play and M3gan.
The film opens in quick fashion with a man dressed in a blood soaked pilot’s outfit (played by Adam Scott) attempting to pawn a wind-up toy drum banging monkey. Apparently, whenever the key is turned and the monkey bangs its drum bloody death follows, and it seems that whoever possesses the toy really has no control over who dies. This ends in a gory death and the man setting fire to the store. The man is Pete Selburn, who has been terrorised by the toy and walks out on his family to spare them from the cursed toy. We don’t learn the origins of the toy, which adds to its mystique, although we learn that Pete collected various exotic objects during his many travels.
His twin sons Hal and Bill (both played by Christian Convery, from Cocaine Bear, etc) are raised by their mother Lois (Tatiana Maslany, from tv series Orphan Black, etc). They uncover the toy monkey amongst Pete’s possessions in a closet. Hal is mercilessly bullied and teased by the more aggressive Bill and the two brothers are often at odds over who owns it. When Hal turns the key hoping that Bill will die, their mother suffers an unusual quick death. The boys are sent off to be raised by their aunt Ida and uncle Chip (Sarah Levy and Osgood Perkins). But death follows the pair.
The boys try different methods to try and destroy the toy monkey but somehow it keeps turning up to wreak more havoc in their lives.
Cut to twenty five years later. Hal and Bill are now adults (both played by Theo James, from the Divergent series, etc) but are estranged and haven’t spoken to each other for years. Hal is also estranged from his teenaged son Pete (Colin O’Brien, recently seen as the young Willy Wonka in Wonka) and deliberately keeps his to try and protect him from the curse of the monkey. He hasn’t told Pete of the existence of his brother. Hal enjoys custody of Pete for one week a year, and unfortunately his visit coincides with the return of the monkey and a rise in suspicious and widespread deaths. When Aunt Ida dies in bizarre circumstances Hal and Bill confront one another and reluctantly reconcile and agree to find a way to end the curse.
The Monkey is adapted from a short story written by the prolific Stephen King, firstly for a magazine in 1980 and then updated and featured in his 1985 anthology Skeleton Crew. Writer/director Osgood Perkins, who last year gave us the creepy and quirky serial killer thriller Longlegs, has taken some liberties with the source material but remains faithful to its themes of father-son relationships, guilt, childhood trauma, bullying, destiny, and being careful what you wish for. But he has also drawn upon painful personal experiences to shape the material. Perkins gleefully embraces the B-movie aesthetics of the premise.
As one of the many producers on The Monkey is James Wan, best known for both the Saw and Insidious franchises, audiences should have some idea what to expect here. Many of the gloriously bloody deaths here are quite imaginative and gory, with blood and body parts and viscera splattering the screen. But they are also played for uncomfortable and macabre laughs. The sometimes elaborate build up to some deaths is reminiscent of the Final Destination series.
James’s Hal narrates the film, but he is the typical unreliable narrator and views events from a limited perspective. In his dual role James beautifully crafts the different personalities for his twin brothers, creating two distinctly different characters. And there is a brief but funny cameo from Elijah Wood, who plays a “fatherhood guru” and Pete’s new stepfather. Nicco Del Rio also offers a brief but funny cameo as a priest who delivers one of the most cringeworthy eulogies ever.
Definitely for those who love their horror both gory, bizarre, blackly humourous and bloody.
★★★
