When I heard that Osgood Perkins was making adaptation of Stephen King’s short story The Monkey, my immediate response was, “Hell yes.” Having seen it, my response is the same. Hell. Yes.
If you’ve not read the short story, it follows two twin brothers whose father bought a toy monkey playing a drum when they were kids. Little did they know that each time a person winds the key in the monkey’s back, someone dies a violent death and there is no telling who will be the victim. When one of the twins asks the monkey to kill his bully brother, it goes awry and kills their mother instead. Later in life, the two are estranged and one definitely wants the other dead at the hands of the monkey.
This film, at its core, is an existential crisis playing out on screen in the most gory way possible. Each death is more violent and outrageous than the last. The death spreads everywhere the monkey goes in the most ridiculous, comically bloody way possible.
All this witnessed by Theo James who plays both of the adult twins, and also narrates the film. Both brothers are in crisis mode mentally. One wants the other dead because he believes the other is responsible for their mother’s death, and the other stays away from his only son because he believe it is never safe to be in his own presence. They are both an example of unchecked mental health issues, and it isn’t surprising given all they went through as kids.
I laughed out loud multiple times during this film, even clapped giddily a time or two for each death was so inventive. Maybe I’m just desensitized to horror since I watched my first horror movie when I was five (The Amityville Horror, another story for another day), but I wasn’t the only one in the theater who found this grotesque show of mental instability amusing. It’s a far cry from Longlegs, a movie I also love, in the best ways possible. Where Longlegs went serious, The Monkey goes bizarrely nuts. And yes, that is a compliment to both movies by Osgood Perkins. More of this, Mr. Perkins. Give us more!
Four out of five blood soaked monkeys playing drums.
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Becky Tyler Art and Photography 
When I heard that Osgood Perkins was making adaptation of Stephen King’s short story The Monkey, my immediate response was, “Hell yes.” Having seen it, my response is the same. Hell. Yes.
If you’ve not read the short story, it follows two twin brothers whose father bought a toy monkey playing a drum when they were kids. Little did they know that each time a person winds the key in the monkey’s back, someone dies a violent death and there is no telling who will be the victim. When one of the twins asks the monkey to kill his bully brother, it goes awry and kills their mother instead. Later in life, the two are estranged and one definitely wants the other dead at the hands of the monkey.
This film, at its core, is an existential crisis playing out on screen in the most gory way possible. Each death is more violent and outrageous than the last. The death spreads everywhere the monkey goes in the most ridiculous, comically bloody way possible.
All this witnessed by Theo James who plays both of the adult twins, and also narrates the film. Both brothers are in crisis mode mentally. One wants the other dead because he believes the other is responsible for their mother’s death, and the other stays away from his only son because he believe it is never safe to be in his own presence. They are both an example of unchecked mental health issues, and it isn’t surprising given all they went through as kids.
I laughed out loud multiple times during this film, even clapped giddily a time or two for each death was so inventive. Maybe I’m just desensitized to horror since I watched my first horror movie when I was five (The Amityville Horror, another story for another day), but I wasn’t the only one in the theater who found this grotesque show of mental instability amusing. It’s a far cry from Longlegs, a movie I also love, in the best ways possible. Where Longlegs went serious, The Monkey goes bizarrely nuts. And yes, that is a compliment to both movies by Osgood Perkins. More of this, Mr. Perkins. Give us more!
Four out of five blood soaked monkeys playing drums.
Discover more from Becky Tyler Art and Photography
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
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