The Monkey ★★★

“Everybody dies. Some of us peacefully and in our sleep, and some of us… horribly. And that’s life.” – Lois Shelburn (Tatiana Maslany)

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, The Monkey’s writer and director Osgood Perkins detailed his writing process and work in adapting Stephen King’s novella. He said, “So step one is always figuring out how it’s about me. How is this thing true for me?” In this case, he notes that, “[The monkey] just is. And around it, these insane unexpected deaths happen, and they seem really impossible and shocking and undeserved. When I got to that place, I just took a beat and was like, ‘Oh, that’s me.’ That’s been my biography. I’ve suffered a couple of those, some really big ones. That was the storyline with both of my parents.” It is with this perspective that Perkins embarked on adapting The Monkey and it is this idea upon which it is built: death is not logical, all life is accidental and death is no exception. The Monkey is equal parts an irreverent send-up of that horror and a coming to terms with its traumatic ramifications. 

The Monkey is a hysterical and madly macabre bloodbath that finds the inevitability of death and mines it for the absurd comedy of errors that can befall one in their final fate. All one can do is laugh through the pain, lest it will consume them entirely as it has for Hal Shelburn (Theo James as an adult, Christian Convery as a child). In his youth, he and his family were stalked by a toy monkey. His father Petey (Adam Scott) brought it into the family accidentally, then left Hal, his twin brother Bill (Theo James as an adult, Christian Convery as a child), and wife Lois, who must deal with both the fall-out of this abandonment and the havoc that the monkey wreaks. It is not always random, as one must wind up the toy to get it to play the drums and as the drumstick twirls in its hand, it chooses its victim. As it begins to play, its horror plays out. It, as Bill and Hal both discover in their own time, “Does not take requests.” It does not typically kill the one who activates it, but the monkey is the weaponized hand of death, taking who it pleases when it pleases and how it pleases. 

As The Monkey meticulously sets the stage for countless deaths in the film, it never side-steps the real pain of loss and grief. Bill is traumatized over one particular death in the brother’s childhood and Hal is traumatized to the point that he has abandoned his own son Petey Jr. (Colin O’Brien) in the hopes of sparing the boy the “baggage” that Hal comes with due to the monkey. In that same interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Perkins speaks to one of the film’s central themes about fatherhood, namely Hal’s moral conflict over whether it is better to abandon Petey Jr. and give him emotional scars over that abandonment or to welcome him into his world, knowing that will give him emotional scars as well (or, worse, see him fall victim to the monkey). In their youth, Hal and Bill tried to fight the monkey. Others have tried as well, but the monkey would always return and continue to kill. As death incarnate, it cannot be defeated and no one in particular can be spared. All one can do is accept it and live in spite of that. For Hal, this awakening comes towards the end. For so long, he has kept Petey Jr. at arm’s length, but all it did was cost him a son, Petey Jr. a father, and it spared neither of them from tragedy. Perkins brilliantly weaves this fatherly and humanistic struggle into the film, balancing it with its simple cinematic delights that make The Monkey into a thoughtful and uproariously entertaining experience.

The entertainment, naturally, comes through death. The final scene in the film involving a bus and a truck is so absurdly over-the-top that one cannot help but laugh. The first few kills in The Monkey shock and may have some fighting to hang onto their most recent meal. The deaths are all detached, traumatized, and nihilistic horrors unleashed upon unsuspecting people who, as is said in the film, are “made to bear witness to the monkey’s power.” In one breath, they are alive and, in the next, their body has splattered into an innumerable number of pieces with a finger sent flying into an unsuspecting bystander’s mouth. The Monkey aims to shock and humor rather than terrify with its blood-soaked chaos never giving rise to much of an ominous atmosphere, instead existing in a state of constant existential dread that simply grips every character and the audience alike then leaps out into a stream of guts and body parts. How Perkins kills his characters is consistently innovative and, true to intent, often funny. Part of it is in the often outlandish effects and part of it is in the simple joy of watching a setup pay-off with Perkins building many scenes around finding ways to kill those on-screen.

As with Perkins’ prior film, Longlegs, The Monkey loses some steam as it begins to demystify itself and, especially in regards to the development Bill takes as a vengeful force against his brother. However, it is the film’s deadpan and macabre sense of humor that makes it so richly enjoyable. Theo James is a perfect fit, having a dramatic and matter-of-fact delivery of the most absurd lines – “We have to make like eggs and scramble,” said as he rushes out of town with Petey Jr. after watching a poor woman die horribly in a swimming pool is comedic gold – that make them really pop. His comedic timing is wonderful and as Hal, he really nails the hollowed out emotions of this man who has seen enough horrors and felt enough pain for one lifetime. A lot of the humor in The Monkey comes through reaction shots and James’ stern face and repressed shock make for a highly effective comedic tool. Elijah Wood has a scene stealing moment as Ted, the soon-to-be adoptive father of Petey Jr., who works as an “expert” in parenting. His character is so goofy and Wood matches that energy perfectly.

“Everybody dies. Some of us peacefully and in our sleep, and some of us… horribly. And that’s life,” says Lois, trying to soothe her sons after a horrifying experience with death. It is startling, but nevertheless apt and quite fitting as a summation of Osgood Perkins’ The Monkey. Death can only be accepted and, at least in this film, it can also be laughed at and played out as absurdist humor. The Monkey is consistently funny, features a strong dual lead performance from Theo James, striking cinematography from DP Nico Aguilar, and impressive effects to bring to life its many nightmarish deaths. Synthesizing much of Perkins’ own philosophy about life and death, this Stephen King adaptation is a wondrously and twistedly fun walk through our fatalistic reality.