The Monkey

Grade: B+

One of The Monkey’s leading characters, as a boy, has a Goosebumps poster on the wall of his room. The movie is like if you took one of the better episodes of Goosebumps or Are You Afraid of the Dark, stretched it out to feature length, and gave it R rated language and gore. It’s absurd, but it’s so effective and fun, and works as a pure exercise in style. Osgood Perkins, the director of Longlegs, has cinematized a Stephen King short story, and the result is the campiest of enjoyment.

The strongest parts of the King stamp are all over this. In many ways, it’s like The Body, which Rob Reiner brought to the silver screen as Stand By Me. We have a story centered around 13-year-olds who are about to get some harrowing life lessons, while the adult version of one of the boys provides narration. The needle-drops on the soundtrack include the likes of “Let the Good Times Roll” (also used in Stand By Me), “Rip it Up,” “I Shall Be Released,” and “Twistin’ the Night Away.” 

The movie begins in the fairly distant past, as a mustachioed man – played by Adam Scott – frantically descends upon a pawn shop with an item in tow, hoping to get rid of it. It’s a wind-up monkey with beady eyes and a menacing smile. The Scott character tells the employee that you don’t want the monkey’s drum stick to hit its snare, or bad things will happen. It doesn’t end well for the pawn shop owner.

The man with the monkey is the father of brothers Hal and Bill. They never really knew dad, as he was a disappearing deadbeat. But they inherited the monkey, which serves as a not-too-subtle metaphor for baggage that runs in the family. Bill is older by three minutes, and has a mean streak. Hal is the character we are with the most. His adult counterpart narrates throughout. It doesn’t take long for Hal to realize that at least one person dies in a “freak accident” whenever someone winds up the monkey. Whoever is the one to turn the key will be OK, but otherwise, you never know who it will be. Try as they might to destroy it, get rid of it, and even move away, it always comes back to this family, good as new. 

The film is more about grisly deaths and practical effects, as opposed to the traditional horror jump scares. As Hal and Bill are twins, it totally makes sense that they would be played by the same actor, and they are. I wasn’t even thinking about that in the early scenes, and saw young Hal and young Bill as two different people. Kudos to 15-year-old Christian Convery. Tatiana Maslany is so great as their mother. Osgood Perkins has another movie coming out later this year, and I’m excited she will be in it.

The monkey isn’t active for about 25 years, and then we cut to the present day, when things start happening again. Theo James gives us an appealing likable character in adult Hal, and is equally convincing as the bullying Bill. By now, Bill has become a scenery-chewing, unhinged archetypal villain. Wait’ll you see his digs. I don’t know why he has all those TVs stacked together, turned on, showing static – but it looks cool in a movie. And at this point, I accepted that so much was over-the-top, and just went along for the ride. Perkins knows his way around some banging cinematography, and Grindhousey font for his title cards. He has now established himself as a director that will make me perk up with interest and be excited whenever I see his name attached to a project. He handles the King material well, with all his famous references to previous works. Of course, it takes place in Maine, and do you recognize the name Annie Wilkes? She shows up here.

Grade: B+