GoMovieReviews Rating: ★★★1/2
Rated: TBA
Directed by: Osgood Perkins
Written by: Osgood Perkins
Based on the Short Story by: Stephen King
Starring: Theo James, Tatiana Maslany, Christian Convery.
‘Looks like God’s bowling strikes today.’
Based on a short story written by Stephen King (Gallery magazine (1980), then revised and published in King’s short story collection, Skeleton Crew (1985)), The Monkey (movie) leans into the absurd making the horror of a monkey that makes terrible, freaky, accidental deaths occur when someone turn its key, funny.
The Monkey isn’t so much a horror, splatter movie, but a satire.
Twins, Hal (Theo James) and Bill (also Theo James) live with their mum, Lois (Tatiana Maslany) who has no filter when talking to her boys about the realities of life and death.
Bill was born before Hal making him the elder twin and Bill never lets Hal forget it.
Bill’s the type of guy when you go to shake hands, he sykes and runs his fingers through his hair instead.
The boys’ dad (Adam Scott) was a pilot that went for a pack of cigarettes then never came back, is what their mum says. Because their father never did come home.
But he did leave keepsakes from his travels, including an Organ Grinder Monkey with, ‘Like Life’, inscribed on the back, with freaky human-like teeth and staring eyes with the whites all around like a psychopath, glinting in the dark.
The Monkey is definitely not a toy.
When people start dying in weird and wonderful ways, the boys realise it’s the monkey and decide to get rid of it.
But the monkey never really disappears.
Fast forward 25 years sees the twin brothers estranged with Hal’s son Petey (Colin O’Brien) in the picture, but only one week every year.
It’s that time of year.
And the monkey has made a reappearance.
The bloody deaths, including fishing hooks in the face followed by the rubbing alcohol used to treat the cuts catching fire, then the flaming person running headlong into a post that empales their head, prove it.
The deaths are creative.
And like Lois their mother says, ‘Don’t think about it too much.’
Because the movie isn’t so much the deaths but the deadpan reaction of Hal to the deaths. And, ‘I’m his next of skin,’ brother hell-bent on being a douche.
Some of the humour is cheap, it’s a laugh-a-minute kind of movie. But there are genuinely hilarious moments.
Like a decapitation referred to in a coin toss of, heads or tails. But let’s not mention the heads because of, you know. The missing head.
The timing of some of the shots still have me grinning.
The movie is a heavy lean into the dark humour of the idea of this killer monkey, and most of the time, I liked it.
FYI, Oz Perkins plays Uncle Chip. Gold.
