When twin brothers Bill and Hal find their father’s old monkey toy in the attic, a series of gruesome deaths start. The siblings decide to throw the toy away and move on with their lives, growing apart over the years.
Chuck says:
During the 1950’s, E.C. Comics (ironically, E.C. stood for “Educational Comics”) became notorious for their tales of bitter irony, in which morally questionable characters would get their comeuppance in a gruesome, horrific manner. Sporting titles like “Tales from the Crypt,” and “The Vault of Horror,” the authors and artists working on these books not only reveled in pushing the boundaries of good taste but also in delivering humor of the darkest variety. If the idea of a cheating baseball players’ head being used as the ball during a game strikes you as a gut-buster, these were the comics for you.
Osgood Perkins’ “The Monkey” would be a perfect fit for one of the E.C. comics, a tale with a sense of humor as dark as a coal mine at midnight. Adapted from a short story by Stephen King, whose cited the E.C. periodicals a s major influence on his work, the film wallows in its gallows humor, the director going out of his way to blindside the audience with one gruesome death after another. Much in the vein of the “Final Destination” movies, “Monkey” quickly establishes its premise, causing the viewer to move to the edge of their seat, either in dread or anticipation, of the next horrendous homicide. To say that Perkins continually increases the gore factor as the film progresses is an understatement.
Cut from the same cloth as Cain and Abel, twins Bill and Hal (Christian Convery) couldn’t be more different, the former an abusive bully, the latter a withdrawn victim. Rooting around in their absentee father’s things one day, they find a macabre toy, a wooden monkey that plays the drums when the key in its back is turned. As any curious boys might, they turn the key, ignorant to the fact that once the drumming stops, someone will die in an unlikely manner.
The first to go is their teenage babysitter who is decapitated at a Chinese restaurant. Her demise, at the hands of a flirtatious cook with a very sharp cleaver, is the most logical. Other victims are impaled, set on fire, trampled to death by horses, explode, are scalded, killed by a shotgun blast or have a tragic lawn mowing accident. My favorite involves a bowling ball cannon.
By now, you know whether this is your cup of tea of not. Twisted individuals will likely be laughing uproariously at the ever-escalating, cleverly rendered murders that take place. Others will be looking at their popcorn more than the movie screen. That I had tears in my eyes and, at times, had a hard time catching my breath, tells you what camp I fall in.
As to the reason why this is happening, well, there is no reason…which, is the point. Consoling her two sons, their mother Lois (Tatiana Maslany) tells her boys, “Everything is an accident, or nothing is an accident. We’ll all die. That’s the way it is.” Cynical, to be sure, but no less true. Still, that doesn’t prevent Hal (now Theo James) from trying to stop the curse, the Monkey being wielded by Bill (also James) for his own purposes.
An effort to make the cursed toy serve as a metaphor for the baggage parents inadvertently foists upon their children falls flat. Not that it’s a bad idea, it just isn’t developed enough to hold any water. Yet, when Perkins concentrates on reminding us of the inexplicable, and sometimes ironic, nature of death, “The Monkey” is firing on all pistons, delivering a convincing argument that it’s better to laugh in the face of fate, rather than plumb its mysteries.
3 1/2 Stars
