The Monkey: Film Review
I love an ultraviolent horror comedy but for some reason, The Monkey didn’t strike the right chord with me and the self-aware tone wore thin after a while.
The latest film by Osgood Perkins tells the story of twins Hal and Bill (Christian Convery as a child and then Theo James) who come into possession of a creepy drum-banging monkey toy thanks to their deadbeat dad Petey (Adam Scott). Whenever they wind up the monkey and it hits its drum, a nearby person dies in horrific and insane ways. Hal tries everything to destroy the monkey or stop it from killing but it somehow keeps coming back.
I loved the opening sequence, which was camp, OTT and super gory, and felt confident that I was on the film’s wavelength and would enjoy whatever transpired over the next 90+ minutes. However, I liked it less and less as the story progressed and struggled to engage with it altogether by the end. The gimmick wore thin and I started to find the self-aware, tongue-in-cheek tone a bit annoying.
It’s very hit-and-miss. There are some good laughs and extremely gruesome and inventive kills but there are also gags which fall flat and deaths that are so dumb and ridiculous. One kill, in particular, was so ludicrous and poorly done with CGI that I lost some respect for the film. Furthermore, some moments are funny simply because of clever editing while other poorly paced scenes could have done with those choppy edits. Plus, The Monkey is a total rip-off of the Final Destination franchise, as the characters die in freak accidents involving household items.
On the positive side, The Monkey is a great showcase for Perkins’s versatility as it is so different from his 2024 horror smash Longlegs. If you’re expecting this latest film to be as sombre and serious as that, you’ll be in for a surprise. This is based on a short story by Stephen King and you can’t help but wonder if there wasn’t enough material to warrant a feature film because the idea really does grow old.
Overall, it feels wrong to review this film critically because it doesn’t take itself seriously. The concept is silly and Perkins knows it – and he leans into this and makes it as absurd and chaotic as possible. While the insane carnage is fun at times, it’s a shame this horror comedy isn’t at all scary and only intermittently funny.
In cinemas from Friday 23rd February
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
