by Eric Lindbom
THE MONKEY
While horror comedy is prevalent now, let’s call THE MONKEY (in theaters) comedy horror.
Writer/director Osgood Perkins made a splash with the intense LONGLEGS, which belongs near the tip top of 2024’s banner horror year while scoring the biggest box office of any indie film. THE MONKEY, adapted from a Stephen King short story, is an entirely different animal with a high body count but played for laughs.
In its promising early going, twin kid brothers sensitive Hal and bully Bill (Christian Convery fine as both) find an organ grinder monkey toy with a death stare encased in a gift box titled ‘like life’ vs. ‘life-like.’ They learn that when they turn the key, and the monkey brings down its drumstick arm, someone dies in a freak accident. Sadly, the deceased includes their beloved single mom (ORPHAN BLACK’s Tatiana Maslany). Guilt-ridden, the brothers ditch the monkey down a well.
Decades later, the adult twins (played by Theo James) are long estranged. Bill has vanished. Hal has turned into a gun-shy recluse about to lose his teen son via adoption to his stepdad (Elijah Wood thuds in a parody of a self-help author). On a father/son farewell weekend, their Maine town experiences a new rash of oddball lethal accidents. Hal figures Bill has resurrected the homicidal toy and searches for him.
Despite a foreboding score when the key turns and the toy gnashes his teeth, THE MONKEY doesn’t pretend to be scary. Instead, it’s all about comic carnage and the admittedly hilarious ways innocents get slaughtered. Since these sight gags carry the film, I won’t ruin things by divulging them.
Last century, when I wrote a slasher-era script, its would-be producer demanded TOD, an acronym for Total Original Death. For instance, chopping off noggins — two heads roll in THE MONKEY — wasn’t enough. Death delivery systems needed to surprise. There’s TOD to burn in THE MONKEY, and the demises are wow-inducing. Expect crimson sprays and a clothesline worth of flayed intestines, but the gore-for-guffaws approach isn’t novel these days. Geysers of blood have even doused SNL of late — as if the writers just dusted off the peerless Monty Python Sam Peckinpah sketch.
If it’s all a big hoot, why be a fuddy-duddy about THE MONKEY? One reason is ace horror comedies require at least a few jump scares, some suspense, or a whiff of dread. The genre granddaddy, ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN spooked youngsters (since Glenn Strange, Bela Lugosi, and Lon Chaney Jr. never broke character); a generation later, blood-dripped organ keys freaked Don Knotts and matinee audiences in THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN. Contemporary examples of effective humor and horror co-mingling abound from EVIL DEAD II, with Sam Raimi’s mix of crazy kills and Three Stooges slapstick, one-liner wielding Chucky and Freddie Krueger, and the genre-cliché name-checking that spiced up the SCREAM series.
THE MONKEY’s low audience scores so far likely have less to do with its breathless execution than false advertising. Since Perkins made THE MONKEY so relentlessly jokey, more Troma than terror, one wonders why he didn’t go all out bonkers and cast Jim Carrey or a newer rubber-faced comic.
While Theo James oozed charm, charisma, and danger on THE WHITE LOTUS, the Guy Ritchie series THE GENTLEMEN, and HBO’s THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE, he’s hamstrung here, trying to go broad. By the time his evil twin shows up, Bill is less a fearsome psycho than the type of campy Bond villain whose ‘monologuing’ was ripely skewered in THE INCREDIBLES.
Perkins has said the story resonates with him, given his tragic childhood. His dad, Anthony Perkins, died of AIDS, and his widowed mother, Berry Berenson, perished in a 9/11 plane crash. While Maslany, as the twin’s mother, has scattered poignant moments up front, any grieving dynamic is as rushed as the twin’s tardy reunion.
If THE MONKEY lacks bite, Perkins directs it with flair and kinetic energy. Neon is making a good bet on him. Like A24 has marketed Ti West as its in-house bogeyman, Neon is doing likewise with Perkins, even aping Marvel with a post-credit sneak of his upcoming KEEPER. Whether they hang for this teaser or not, those out for a shits-and-giggles spook house ride should leave with a grin.
Eric Lindbom is a hardcore horror buff with a strong stomach, weaned on the Universal classics from the ’30s and ’40s. He’s written film and/or music reviews for City Pages, Twin Cities Reader, LA WEEKLY, Request magazine and Netflix. He co-edits triggerwarningshortfiction.com, a site specializing in horror, fantasy and crime short stories with illustrations by co-editor John Skewes. He lives in Los Angeles.
