The Monkey Flings Its Fun And Gore
I didn’t know Osgood Perkins was so funny. His latest film, The Monkey, is a horror comedy and a damn fine one. We hit the ground running with the narrator’s father attempting to sell the titular monkey in a pawn shop, hoping to get it away from his family. He arrives covered in “quite a lot of blood” and the clerk refuses to take the monkey. As the monkey begins to bang on his drum the father (played by Adam Scott) gets more and more frantic until the first kill of the movie happens. It’s gory but sets the tone perfectly for the rest of the film.
We then hop forward in time to our main characters as children. The twins (Hal and Bill) find the monkey in the closet and things start going wrong almost immediately. This film’s pacing is relentless. Once the monkey is rediscovered we are moving at a breakneck speed from death to death and funeral to funeral. There are a lot of Stephen King-isms included in this movie (elaborate pranks from verbose bullies, Maine, a disdain for organized religion) but they’re lovingly implemented and even more lovingly lampooned.
The twins and their mother have a really special relationship. She has many of the best lines in the movie but the love that she feels for her boys permeates every scene. There are several funeral scenes scattered throughout the picture but they never feel boring. The design of the Monkey itself is really freaky and I had no trouble believing that thing was alive.
I don’t want to get too specific about the rest of the film because I think a lot of the joy of it is in the discovery but I will say the performances are terrific, especially Theo James and Tatiana Manslay. The effects are over the top and the kills are creative. I was most impressed though, at the heart this movie has. Woven throughout the violent set pieces are genuinely touching moments, some about family, some about grief and some about this creepy looking monkey who’s always waiting for his next target. The father-son relationship established in the back half of the film is great.
I don’t know folks, I really liked this one.
I give The Monkey (NEON, Atomic Monster; R; 1 hr 38 mins) a 4 out of 5.
