In one of many well-executed nods to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Cinerama-style red and blue credits play over a black screen to sizzling ’60s surf rock, a whiff of violent glee in the air. Suddenly, we smash-open inside a sickly green pawn shop where circus ringmaster Adam Scott stands in nervous tension, toy monkey nearby. It’s not long before he’s blasting a flamethrower and spit-screaming, “You infernal son of a whore!” with vitriol, both feet planted and one shoulder cocked back like Rick Dalton melting Nazis in The 14 Fists of McCluskey. A perfect preamble for the comedic slaughter to come.
There’s no beating around the bush: The Monkey is a vessel for capturing cinematically cool kills. But not just cool kills––cool kills with an eight-figure budget, from the mind of Stephen King, developed by an offbeat team of creatives, and under the direction of an ever-maturing Osgood Perkins, who seems to have relatively strong freedom from the pulpit with his congregation of semi-independent studio backers. When’s the last time you saw a well-funded, artfully crafted, no-frills, self-secure “1,000 Ways to Die” horror comedy?
There is the thin ghost of a plot: twin boys and a mother left behind by their dad, who also left behind a wide cylindrical box. Growing up sans patriarch, the kids lean on their mom (Tatiana Maslany) for everything. She ranges from picture-perfect 1950s flower-dress mother to dark Marla Singer mom slinging heavy existential truths, e.g. “everyone dies” but without the reassurance a parent might offer in tandem about the joys and longevity of life before death. Despite a paternal absence, everything comes back to the father.
The Monkey claims to be about “fathers passing horrors onto their children,” as Theo James’ voiceover didactically informs us. It’s a cursory exploration of the theme, at most, but it makes sense coming from Perkins. With a line like that so early on, one can’t help but think about the actor-turned-director’s Hollywood lineage and curses passed down from his parent, some of which have been publicly discussed ad nauseum.
Oz Perkins is the son of Anthony Perkins, the famous Psycho actor who married to maintain his image, remained closeted his entire life for fear of being shut out of Hollywood and an acting career, and raised a son in the shadow of it all. That must have come with its own unique difficulties, even if they don’t end up being addressed by or infused into the film.
When the boys finally decide to open their father’s hat box of a toy box, a heavy atmosphere à la Jumanji (another movie about fathers passing horrors onto their children, in which Jonathan Hyde plays both stern parent and killer hunter) sets in, dread surmounting beneath the lid. They take it off. Inside is a toy monkey with hollowed pits for eyes, equal-parts glassy and fleshy, eerie ivory clackers for teeth, a frozen shit-eating-grin, and a state of pure alert hardcoded onto his face––a genuinely terrifying toy with the right shadow, insinuation, and music. On the back of the lid is a bright red-lettered sticker reading “Turn the key and see what happens.” The boys do. People die. They have complicated feelings about that. They try to get rid of it and don’t really succeed, but it’s gone for a while anyways and nothing definitive happens.
Needless to say it comes back. There’s no rhyme or reason to who it kills. It’s accentuated that the monkey kills aimlessly––perhaps, at turns, even spitefully––but never by decree. By the time the boys have grown up and Theo James is cartoonishly portraying both of them––one basically Velma and the other a mulleted Sid from Toy Story, which strangely works well for the former and not at all for the latter––all possible interest in story or theme has evaporated; just get us to the next creative kill. And, to Perkins’ credit, he does.
Absent plot is compensated for in the tickled anticipation of constantly impending deaths at the hands of the mystical, omniscient killer toy monkey. What fateful Rube Goldberg-esque string of events awaits? It’s like Final Destination but the grungy early-aughts shadow vibe and desperate emotional appeal for a narrative is replaced with a filmic ’60s glow and self-awareness that the fun is in the comic insanity of the kills, which are elevated by crafty filmmaking and tasteful brevity.
It’s simple. You turn the key in his back and it’s all over: the monkey slowly rears his giant teeth, then his meaty gums; he cocks his stiff hand up, spins his drumstick in his palm, clicks it into place, and proceeds to speed-bang on his clacky little snare drum to breakneck carnie-horror music emitted from his person. When he’s done, shit hits the fan. And boy does it. The body count is well over 50, and at least 20 of those get their own spirited scene of imaginative expiration.
Be it a man in a sleeping back trampled by a stampede of horses into a cherry pie-resembling pulp or an unexpected crossbow quarrel sailing across the room and through someone’s stomach, the violence is extreme. Most deaths are grisly, gruesome, shocking, funny, Perkins’ exaggerated display of violence another nod to Tarantino. And it’s not just physical violence. Early on, a class bully calls one of the twins “Young Sheldon.” It doesn’t get much harsher than that.
Fresh off Longlegs, Perkins is on a roll. The Monkey has almost nothing in common with its horror predecessor, and that’s partly what makes it a fresh arrival in an otherwise despondent season of cinema. Who wants another Longlegs when we just got one? Perkins likes to stretch his style and stay open to new ideas––it makes him a worthwhile director to follow.
The Monkey is now in wide release.