The posters for NEON’s new horror movie The Monkey don’t highlight the movie’s cast. Instead, it shouts out the three big names associated with it: Stephen King (who wrote the original short story), James Wan (who produced it), and Longlegs’s Osgood Perkins (who wrote and directed it). It’s a curious choice, because it does a clear job of selling this movie’s horror bonafides — while not at all revealing how The Monkey, in truth, is one of the most demented comedies of the 21st century.
Oh, it’s definitely scary at points, Perkins proving quite masterful at drawing out the suspense surrounding the definitely supernatural, definitely evil monkey of the title. Yet there’s a manic, Looney Tunes-esque lilt to the bloody mayhem that occurs, in ways that have to be seen to be believed. Imagine the most horrible, Rube Goldberg-esque accidental deaths you can, and trust that Perkins has found a way to add an extra grotesque spin to them… in a way that inspires belly laughs.
The Monkey begins with a prologue featuring the always-welcome Adam Scott as Captain Petey Shelborn, who’s trying to get rid of the titular toy and failing. The simian spotlighted here is no CGI creation from WETA, but a wind-up doll about the size of a Build-a-Bear creation, with a little red vest and a drum it plays. (The carnival music the toy emits becomes, very early in the movie, quite triggering.)
The rules get established immediately: When the key in the monkey’s back is turned, the monkey plays its little song while banging its little drum. Then, without fail, someone in the general vicinity (the same room, the same house, or even the same town) will die in a gruesome, unexpected, seemingly accidental way. There’s no controlling who actually dies — death is the only certainty.
Several years after the prologue, Petey’s twin sons Bill and Hall (played as kids by Christian Convery) discover the monkey in a closet, their father no longer around to tell them about the repercussions of playing with it. The always-warring brothers eventually figure out what’s going on — once people start dying, that is — and agree to trap the monkey somewhere it can’t escape.
The monkey haunts both men into adulthood, though, at which point Hal (now played by Theo James, poor Mr. Pamuk himself) lives as isolated a life as he can manage, not wanting anyone close to him to get hurt. But you can’t keep a good murder monkey down, and as Hal embarks on an awkward road trip with his estranged son (Colin O’Brien), also named Petey, the carnage begins again — and Bill might just be behind it all.
The Monkey (NEON)
That’s the plot of the movie, which largely serves as a delivery mechanism for, as mentioned, some of the more gnarly on-screen deaths I’ve ever seen. Whether seen in a brief glimpse or in an extended white-knuckle sequence, Perkins proves particularly adept at setting up just enough details to give you a sense of what’s about to happen to the victim of the moment — and then figuring out a way to add a handful of bloody cherries on the top.
It’s not just the deaths that elevate The Monkey over more basic horror fare; there’s real personality and verve to Perkins’ filmmaking, especially in the way that every supporting character stands out as a unique individual, with their own rich backstory. Tatiana Maslany, who plays Hal and Bill’s mother in flashbacks, gets a monologue about the fate awaiting all of us that’s singular in its execution; a moment between mother and sons that’s not just brilliantly acted, but the sort of oddball little scene that’s just as memorable as a lady’s head catching on fire.
For those worried that The Monkey doesn’t sound like a Stephen King project, know that it does include his usual hallmarks as a storyteller — the small-town Maine setting, the struggling middle-aged father haunted by his past, and of course a celebration of viscera that’s very true to the writer’s iconic spirit. (In King’s book On Writing, he describes in detail his early days working in a professional laundry facility that handled the linens from a local hospital — sheets and towels soaked in blood and guts. Learning that part of King’s backstory made so much of his writing since that time make sense to me.)
Watching The Monkey was a reminder about how powerful the connection is not just between comedy and horror, but music as well. These are three areas of creation that are all very different in their specific intentions but are all geared towards the same general goal: Getting a response out of the audience.
The most effective creators are the ones who are attuned to the fundamental tools and tricks available in their respective mediums, and how to use them to create expectation, rhythm, and release: The comedian who pauses just the right number of seconds before delivering a killer callback. The musician who gets the crowd on its feet with a key change. The horror director who knows how many times a woman should try to open a door before what’s on the other side of that door makes her explode.
Calibrating a horror-comedy requires intense precision, since the director has to keep the tension alive while also bringing in just the right level of over-the-top gore and mayhem to inspire laughs, not screams. I’d estimate that a good 95% of The Monkey is totally dialed in, especially when it comes to finding a level of gore that plays as hilariously disturbing. It’s a movie that, above all else, invites you to laugh at the horrors of the world. Which, right now, feels really, really good.
The Monkey arrives in theaters on Friday, February 21st. Check out the trailer below.
