The Monkey
Osgood Perkins’ misanthropic take on Stephen King’s short story is a cheerless addition to the splatter genre.
No such thing as an accident? Tatiana Maslany
Image courtesy of Black Bear Pictures.
The monkey is just an excuse. Like many a childhood pleasure adopted by the horror genre – be it a doll, a clown or an amusement arcade – the organ grinder’s monkey of the title isn’t very threatening per se. It does look creepy, and it projects a bone-chilling smile, but it’s essentially an inanimate object with a talent for generating death. “Everybody dies,” explains the mother (Tatiana Maslany) of identical twins Hal and Bill Shelburn. “I will die. You will die.” What Lois Shelburn doesn’t realise is that her own gruesome death – from a “boomerang aneurysm” – is a direct result of her sons’ clockwork monkey, a hand-me-down from their absent father.
The Monkey, the film, adapted from a short story by Stephen King, is just an excuse for a series of bizarrely illogical deaths that are rather implausibly rendered. The excess of blood, gore and mangled body parts are so exaggerated that, presumably, they are intended for comic effect. The director, who won some critical approval for his last horror outing, Longlegs, does attempt to sidestep the clichés of his chosen genre and relishes the idiosyncrasy he brings to his material. There is a prevailing mood of doom and gloom that hovers over the film, a nastiness that overrides any suspense or shock. Because the characters are so unrelentingly unpleasant, their deaths mean little to us – it is their behaviour while alive that is so horrible. Is the director Osgood Perkins presenting us with a commentary on dysfunctional Americana, or is he actually trying to scare us?
Unfortunately, the contrived air of quirkiness separates the viewer from any sense of genuine involvement, leaving the supporting players to gurn heroically as if auditioning for a Twin Peaks revival. At least in Longlegs, Maika Monroe gave us a character we cared about, which is more than can be said for Theo James’ one-dimensional protagonist here. Because of the trail of destruction left by Hal Shelburn’s heirloom, the grown-up Hal (Theo James) limits the time he spends with his own son to one visit a year. Thus, his surly offspring (Colin O’Brien) has to contend with the paternal ministrations of his stepfather, the best-selling author of Fatherhood Made Easy, played by Elijah Wood. There was an opportunity here for Perkins to steer his film into more overtly satirical terrain, but the overall tone ends up being more despairing, more depressing, than anything shocking or blackly comic. Overcast skies and a preponderance of nocturnal scenes add to the feeling of claustrophobic despondency, of a sense that humanity has no hope and that Osgood Perkins has made a monkey of us all.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Theo James, Tatiana Maslany, Christian Convery, Colin O’Brien, Rohan Campbell, Sarah Levy, Adam Scott, Elijah Wood, Laura Mennell, Osgood Perkins, Zia Newton, Nicco Del Rio, Shafin Karim.
Dir Osgood Perkins, Pro James Wan, Dave Caplan, Brian Kavanaugh-Jones and Chris Ferguson, Ex Pro Peter Safran, John Rickard, Natalia Safran, Michael Clear, Judson Scott, Jesse Savath, Fred Berger, Liz Destro, Chris Cole, Omani Carson, Andy Price, Sara W. Price, Tom Quinn, Jason Wald, Christian Parkes, Emily Thomas, Ryan Friscia, Teddy Schwarzman, John Friedberg, Michael Heimler, Peter Luo, Nancy Xu, Owen Qing, David Gendron and Ali Jazayeri, Screenplay Osgood Perkins, from the short story by Stephen King, Ph Nico Aguilar, Pro Des Danny Vermette, Ed Greg Ng and Graham Fortin, Music Edo Van Breemen, Costumes Mica Kayde, Sound Eugenio Battaglia.
Black Bear/The Safran Company/Atomic Monster/C2-Black Bear Pictures.
97 mins. USA/UK. 2025. UK and US Rel: 21 February 2025. Cert. 15.
