movie review
THE MONKEY
Running time: 98 minutes. Rated R (strong bloody violent content, gore, language throughout and some sexual references). In theaters.
Meet Injurious George.
The supernatural villain of “The Monkey,” writer-director Osgood Perkins’ one-note followup to last year’s surprise horror hit “Longlegs,” is a toy chimp that murders somebody every time his little key is turned and he starts to drum.
Creepy Monkey’s not unlike Chucky or M3GAN or Talky Tina from “The Twilight Zone,” except he doesn’t talky. He’s only killy.
What’s supposed to generate suspense in the film, but doesn’t ever, is that the mysterious plaything’s operator can’t choose who’s going to get offed. Only the turner is safe, and each death is otherwise random.
And gruesome. Perkins, whose film is based on a Stephen King short story, emulates better splatter horror movies such as “Evil Dead” in his exhausting attempts to out-gross himself.
At one point, a woman falls into a bucket of fish hooks, and her torn-up face catches on fire before she runs outside and gets impaled on a for sale sign.
Another man’s head is obliterated by a bowling ball. A shop clerk’s intestines are ripped out by a retractable arrow. A baby stroller is set ablaze in what’s supposed to be a sight gag.
Nothing’s wrong with a few buckets of blood, but Perkins’ movie waters them down with its repetitious plot and weak attempts at humor. “The Monkey” strains to be a comedy as much as a horror film and effectively works as neither.
It starts with a pair of teen twins, sweet Hal and bully Bill (both played by Christian Convery), who discover a toy monkey that belonged to their late dad in the attic. In a grasp at profundity, the tagline on the blue box says “Like Life.”
It’s supposed to suggest, “Like life, everybody dies.” In practice, however, it comes to mean, “Like life, this is very boring.”
Perkins’ morbid jokes and faux-1970s decor lend the house a “Royal Tenenbaums”-meets-“Addams Family” vibe. However, that would be giving “The Monkey” too much credit. Its tone is indecisive and lazy.
When the boys are dining at a teppanyaki restaurant being served fried rice, the evil ape causes the chef to slit their babysitter’s throat.
Alarmed and with a greater understanding of the plastic animal’s power, vengeful Hal turns the key to vanquish his mean brother, only to cause blood to shoot out their mother’s eyeballs. Buh-bye, mom (Tatiana Maslany).
The orphans then move in with their aunt and uncle, hurl the cursed object down a well and the film jumps 20 years into the future.
By then, I’d abandoned hope. We already know where the relatively short flick is headed, and Perkins has provided no reason to think the ho-hum journey will be anything more than flat and scenic.
Now adult Hal (Theo James) is a depressing, single dad who only sees his angsty son Pete (Colin O’Brien) once a year. During the odd annual visit, townsfolk start dying mysteriously. The monkey’s back — Jumanji-style. And bitter Bill is lurking in the shadows.
I was a big fan of “Longlegs,” which mixed “The Silence of the Lambs” with, well, different possessed dolls. Like Marie Osmond, he’s clearly a collector.
Despite this genre mush, I remain the man’s fan. What carries over from “Longlegs” is Perkins’ visual ability to make rural towns not only spooky, but otherworldly. A sexier, 2025 “X-Files,” almost.
What of the storytelling? Perhaps it, too, was done in by a maniacal magic monkey. His characters aren’t developed whatsoever, and the boys and men are largely indifferent to the madness happening all around them. They shrug at brutal executions and deliver punchlines to nobody.
If they don’t care, why should we?
Wonky kong gets the gong.