Director Osgood Perkins (son of “Psycho” star Anthony Perkins) and distributor NEON are looking to strike gold again with “The Monkey,” which is Perkins’s follow-up to “Longlegs,” the surprise box office hit from last July. Both films operate in the horror and suspense genres, but “The Monkey” strikes a different tone than “Longlegs,” showing Perkins’s desire to take a lighter tone while still putting horrific images on screen.
“Longlegs,” which played like “The Silence of the Lambs” karaoke, had a much darker tone (which often conflicted with a less-than-serious Nicholas Cage performance), but “The Monkey” is a movie about setting up over-the-top kills. Some of the kills are effective and can even be funny at times, but it eventually becomes clear the movie lacks focus and simply wants to splash blood across the screen.
“The Monkey” opens with a man (Adam Scott) frantically trying to sell a toy monkey at a shop. The owner doesn’t seem interested, but the man is intent on getting it out of his possession, advising the shop owner not to wind it up or raise its arm. Once the monkey is activated and begins banging on the drum, someone will die a gruesome death.
The plot then follows twin brothers Hal and Billy (both played by Christian Convery), who live with their widowed mother Lois (Tatiana Maslany). Bill and Hal aren’t the closest and have much different personalities, which tends to put them at odds with each other. When they discover the monkey and its abilities, it becomes tempting to use it for their own nefarious purposes.
The rest of the movie — adapted by Perkins from a short story by Stephen King — follows the ramifications of the possessed toy’s power. Theo James stars as Hal and Bill when they are older and gives a performance of someone who has been tormented by a wind up monkey.
There’s fun to be had throughout the movie, but at some point it becomes clear “The Monkey” serves a limited purpose. There’s not much rhyme or reason as to why events happen, it’s all driven by the understanding this particular toy has the power to cause a great deal of destruction. For horror fans, there’s plenty of gleeful, twisted kills executed on screen to satisfy, but by the end of the movie, one question remains.
Is that it?
“The Monkey” feels like the kind of movie a filmmaker would make to follow up a very serious (and surprise) hit. For all the style and mayhem, “The Monkey” is pretty light on its feet. It just winds up feeling like an exercise in onscreen kills, rather than a fully-realized movie.
“The Monkey” opens at The Little and other local theaters on Friday, February 21.
Matt Passantino is a contributor to CITY.
This article appears in Dec 1-31, 2024.
