I made the mistake of watching “The Monkey” by myself in a large, nearly empty Cinemark theater. As the latest installment from “Longlegs” director Osgood Perkins, I was expecting to be horrified or, at least, shocked.
Instead, “The Monkey” is a flurry of confusion. The film follows twin brothers Hal and Bill Shelburne (Theo James, “Divergent”) as they deal with a murderous toy monkey accidentally passed down to them by their absentee father. The story kicks into gear when, as children, young Hal and Bill (Christian Convery, “Cocaine Bear”) discover that winding up the monkey with a key will cause someone nearby to arbitrarily and brutally die. As adults, the resurgence of brutal, freak accidents in their town forces the brothers to find the monkey once again.
The first scene of “The Monkey” pretty much establishes the movie tonally, if not narratively. Here, we see Adam Scott (“Severance”) barge into a pawn shop, trying to return a life-sized, furry toy monkey that holds a drum and two drumsticks. Osgood Perkins shoots this scene with cinematographic color grading that rivals that of “Blade Runner 2049”: The green undertones establish an eerie tone and the clever composition helps to create an aura of mystery. However, these artistic choices are completely undermined in the next second when the monkey begins to play its little tune — and subsequently butchers the clerk of the pawn shop in an utterly comical way (to summarize: lots and lots of intestines).
This jarring opening scene sets the tone for the rest of the movie, which quickly becomes an uncoordinated game of ping pong between seriousness and facetiousness. You would think that this constant whiplash in tone would make the movie more entertaining. As a B-rated modern horror film, “The Monkey” relies on all-too-common tropes in horror like the evil twin and, of course, the murderous childhood toy. However, the change in tone is simply so constant that its novelty disappears after the fourth gory, albeit creative, kill.
So, what else does “The Monkey” offer other than shocking murders specifically designed to make your jaw drop? Sitting by myself in that near-empty theater, I came to discover that the answer is: absolutely nothing. My biggest mistake in watching “The Monkey” was not bringing a friend with me. Instead of having someone to laugh at the ridiculous kills with, I was left sitting alone, mouth gaping in a silent theater and feeling as if I might be hallucinating the events happening on-screen.
The greatest sin of “The Monkey” is that it has everything it needs to be genuinely entertaining, but it still fails to meet its potential. The idea of a killer toy monkey is exciting, but all the creative ways in which Perkins kills off his characters quickly become, ironically, repetitive. The same can be said of the film’s relatively picturesque cinematography and funny dialogue choices, which start out as exciting but then never end up mattering in any significant way.
However, out of all of these disappointing elements, the film’s most glaring failure is its inability to create interesting characters. The premise alone should warn you that this is an unserious movie, and indeed, you can tell that its writers and actors are all having fun on set coming up with the twists and turns of the movie. Theo James’s acting is certainly a plus. He plays the “good versus evil” twin trope to perfection, from appearing innocent in large circular glasses as Bill to sporting a bad edgy mullet as Hal. Throughout the film, the estranged twins struggle to reconcile, still haunted by the monkey killing their mother when they were younger. Both brothers handle the trauma of having owned a murderous childhood monkey toy in different ways — Bill grapples with fatherhood, while Hal seeks his mother’s vengeance.
There is potential in exploring something deeper with the twins’ tumultuous relationship. Since their childhood, Hal has been borderline abusive toward Bill; his cruelty towards the younger boy arguably takes up more screen time than the monkey’s terror. Unfortunately, the movie refuses to comment on this. In fact, it refuses to comment on anything at all. Hal’s cruelty is given no context, and Bill doesn’t even seem to be affected by his brother’s abuse in his adulthood. The twins’ father — who, the movie tells us, is largely to blame for the events of the movie, simply for owning a murderous monkey in the first place — isn’t given a backstory either. In fact, he doesn’t even appear after the first five minutes of the movie.
The plot of “The Monkey” would probably make more sense if the monkey itself was given some explanation for its existence, but there is never any backstory given for this titular character. The same toy monkey that the film keeps claiming is alive is given no real life at all. When a movie is so uninterested in unpacking its own mysteries, how can anyone expect the audience to be hooked?
Halfway through the movie’s hour-and-a-half long runtime, I started wishing that the monkey would choose me as its next victim — at least then I wouldn’t have to suffer through the rest of the movie. “The Monkey” is a disappointing movie that holds some campy, unique and fun horror potential, but falls flat in the face of its own confusion.
Daily Arts Writer Nat Shimon can be reached at nshimon@umich.edu.
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