The Monkey is a new horror/comedy film that was released in February of this year. It is directed by Osgood Perkins, who is no stranger to the horror genre; he directed Longlegs and is the son of Anthony Perkins, the star of Psycho (1960).
The film follows twin brothers, Hal and Bill, who were left with a suspicious wind-up toy monkey. The monkey, however, is going on a killing spree, and so the boys tie it up and put it to rest. When it comes back twenty years later, again on a killing spree, the estranged brothers have to band together so they and their loved ones are not the next victims when the monkey starts banging its murderous drum.
This review contains spoilers for the movie; read at your own risk.
Before diving into the movie itself, it is important to recognize the trailer. It did an amazing job of instilling a sense of curiosity into the viewers by creating the perfect essence of a comedic thriller. The preview gave the viewers just enough to stay hooked until the film was released.
The fun didn’t end there either! The opening scene for this movie was incredible. It starts off with a man in a captain’s uniform walking into a pawn shop, carrying a large wind-up monkey with a drum. The bloodied man warns the owner of the shop to not turn the key in the monkey’s back, but the owner does it anyway and gets harpooned right in the stomach. Adam Scott, who plays the man in the uniform, then burns the store, trying to dispel any remnants of the monkey. However, it still remains “alive.”
After the opening sequence and about the first 30 minutes of the film, the plot quality quickly starts to go downhill. It feels like the film is trying to be the next big horror/comedy movie. It lacks a strong storyline, and the continuous time-jumps from present to past can cause confusion. During the “past” scenes, they didn’t work to build up a major reveal, and it just felt like every scene was used to show off a gruesome death. Overall the director didn’t do an amazing job at connecting the past and present together.
One thing we can give to the movie is creating extremely unique deaths. Although some of them were actually quite funny, we felt as though Perkins missed an amazing opportunity to really reach into the horror world. The predictable deaths could have been elevated by incorporating more horror and gore.
There was also an odd part of the film that included special effects that did not go with the rest of the film. The scene was supposed to accentuate the connection between the monkey and Hal, with the use of psychedelic patterns as well as a mirroring effect with both of their faces. They were used once and then they were never brought back for the rest of the film. This is another example of a lack of commitment in this movie. Instead of creating a psychedelic or supernatural vibe, it left viewers confused about the connection between the monkey and the boys. It probably would have been best to just cut this scene from the movie, since adding the effects throughout the film would just confuse the viewers even more.
The biggest issue with this film was the lack of direction. It is supposed to be a horror/comedy, but we felt like it couldn’t commit to either genre. In a way, the movie was trying too hard to be a comedy, which left the audience with lackluster funny scenes and no terrifyingly scary scenes. The director did an amazing job with curating the trailer, but he should have focused more on developing the plot and characters. Had he chosen to have one genre be his main focus, we think this movie could have been a lot better.
In addition, the ending was horrible, leaving viewers unfulfilled. After spending the entire movie waiting to see what would happen to the monkey and the estranged brothers, the ending could not have been more anticlimactic. When the brothers finally reunite, the main horror aspect is completely changed. The drum-beating monkey starts turning the key itself, contradicting the entire idea that someone had to choose to turn the key.
To make it worse, after continuously turning the key and playing by itself, the monkey ends up killing almost everyone in the town including Bill. If this was done well, it could have created an ominous and intense tone, but instead many viewers just felt that it was unnecessary. In the end, there isn’t even some major overcoming; Hal and his son just end up leaving town with the monkey, stating that they’ll make sure it doesn’t kill anymore. This doesn’t make any sense, considering the fact that monkeys can now technically turn the key itself, meaning that they can’t really do anything to stop it.
Overall this movie wasn’t the best and we were a bit disappointed. We speculated that had Perkins taken just a bit more time to develop the plot, genre, and characters, the movie would have been ten times better.
