Part of Stephen King’s appeal as a horror writer is his uncanny ability to run with the strangest of premises. From classics like It and The Shining to lesser known works like The Langoliers, King’s ideas don’t always work yet his commitment to their absurdity is admirable in and of itself. Osgood Perkins, director of the acclaimed Longlegs, brings his own idiosyncratic style to this adaptation of King’s short story, The Monkey, resulting in a film that’s tonally and visually bizarre, yet unashamedly so.
Hal and Bill Shelburn (both played by Christian Convery), are twin brothers with an uneasy dynamic. Bill often bullies and belittles Hal, using his role as the older twin as a position of authority both at school and at home. The boys stumble upon an eerie toy monkey, seemingly a cherished toy of their absentee father’s. The pair don’t think much of it at first, but when a string of strange, gruesome deaths occur around them, they dispose of the monkey, believing that it is connected to these deaths.
25 years later and Hal (Theo James) is an isolated adult all but estranged from his son Petey (Colin O’Brien). The father and son pair go on an awkward road trip together, but the re-emergence of the toy monkey – and the subsequent deaths that follow it – force Hal to change plans. Setting off down a path that will see Hal reunite with Bill (also Theo James), Hal vows to destroy the monkey and end its murderous streak.
In writing the script, on top of directing the picture, Perkins opts to give the film a comedic tone. The premise of a toy monkey killing people is inherently silly, and so Perkins chooses to embrace that side of the story. The dialogue is deliberately off-kilter at times, dragging out conversations to highlight their preposterousness – a cameo from Elijah Wood as a psychologist being the most notable instance of this. Sharp editing between build-up and aftermath highlight not only the calculated nature of the comedy, but the peculiarities of it too. As gory as many of the kills are, they’re equally insane to try and describe. Just to name an example, one woman who is unlucky enough to fall into the monkey’s crosshairs first gets her face stabbed by fish hooks, then her head is set on fire by a gas hob before a jagged signpost puts her out of her misery.
Despite how graphic that sounds – and it is – the film presents its death scenes as borderline cartoonish. Sure enough, if this were a bloodless Looney Tunes short we’d probably be laughing. This reliance on comedy creates a morbidness to the picture that not only allows it to stand out from Annabelle, Chucky or other toy based horrors, but feeds into the central themes. What may seem like a self-sabotaging choice in actuality serves the film well.
The Monkey is ultimately a story about acceptance and how one copes with the awful curveballs life throws at us. Hal is a lonely kid who grows up into a lonely adult precisely because he struggles to move on from the deaths that have plagued his family. The monkey itself is symbolic of his own omnipresent guilt in relation to these deaths, its presence not always seen but constantly felt. The scene-chewing performances and sheer ridiculousness of some of these deaths are in part a way of scoffing at the banality of death – of how death is inevitable yet can appear in unexpected, even ludicrous ways. This is something that Perkins himself has said he’s painfully aware of – his father died of a sudden AIDS diagnosis and his mother died during 9/11. Yet it is only by accepting this inevitability that we can make sense of our lives and work on ourselves, a lesson Hal comes to learn as he returns to his past horrors in order to find the courage that he lacked as a kid. In a way, this film is Hal’s coming-of-age journey.
This humanity beneath the absurdity is what makes The Monkey an engaging, entertaining piece, one with a decent handle on generating suspense too. Its use of long takes and the monkey’s lullaby-esque musical chimes astutely build anticipation as we ponder not only what outlandish moment of gore is coming up, but how it is going to come about. Whether it’s swimming pools and electricity, horses on a campsite, or a shotgun in a cupboard – complete with an ironic pro-firearms frame next to the weapon – there’s no shortage of macabre creativity to both the filmmaking and the carnage.
With all this said, there are times when the comedic tone does undermine the film’s more dramatic moments. The inclusion of an insensitive priest at a funeral, or a cheerleading squad who seem weirdly ecstatic about newly discovered corpses feels misguided at best. There’s a self-awareness to the film’s comedic delivery that may prove grating to some. Theo James’ dual performance is admirable, but the character of Bill is a caricature even by the film’s own standards. Underdeveloped bullies have long been a trope of Stephen King’s – alongside compulsory settings in Maine, which is also present here – but Bill is far too one note, despite the film’s attempts to explore his motivations as an adult. His casual cruelty, even with the surrounding context, isn’t deep or interesting enough to salvage the character. The special effects are hit-and-miss, the CGI leaping out during the more baffling kills, while inclusions of Stephen King Easter eggs – most prominently a character named Annie Wilkes – also feels like an unnecessary creative choice. It doesn’t ruin the film, but all of this stacked together does make it an abnormal feature that almost certainly won’t be to everyone’s tastes.
Osgood Perkins only seems to have adapted King’s short loosely if the synopses are anything to go by, yet he evidently understands what makes the most mind-boggling of King stories work so well. Proud of its absurdity, while also packing solid suspense and humanistic themes, it’s as gory and unruly as it is bizarrely humorous. Its blending of horror and comedy may not sit right with everyone who sees it – but for those looking for a sillier horror film that’s unashamedly itself, The Monkey will have you banging your proverbial drum, just like the toy entity at the centre of the film.
The Monkey is in cinemas February 21st
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Director: Osgood Perkins
Writer: Osgood Perkins (based on The Monkey by Stephen King)
Stars: Theo James, Colin O’Brien, Christian Convery, Tatiana Maslany, Sarah Levy, Rohan Campbell, Elijah Wood
Runtime: 98 minutes
Country: USA
