The Monkey - Movie Review

The Movie: The Monkey

The Director: Osgood Perkins

The Cast: Theo James, Tatiana Maslany, Christian Convery, Colin O'Brien, Rohan Campbell, Sarah Levy, Adam Scott, Elijah Wood

The Story: 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.

The Rating: 8 / 10

The Review:

I feel like this movie is way better than it ever deserved to be. At face value, the story seems kind of silly, but Osgood Perkins is just that good of a filmmaker to turn it into something really special. The director is slowly but surely putting together an impressive resume within the horror genre having also released Longlegs which featured one of Nicolas Cage's more unique performances, and that's really saying something considering everything he has put out there.

As you're probably aware, the movie is based off of a Stephen King short story so you know it's got a great foundation and, now that I think about it, I want to watch the movie again to see if I can catch any references to the interconnected universe of stories he's created over his career. I recently learned about the "Stephen King Universe" while watching the It: Welcome to Derry series on HBO Max, which is pretty fantastic, by the way and it has me really intrigued and wanting to explore further.

Perkins fills the movie with fun vibes and crazy kills that are reminiscent of early Scream and Final Destination movies with a big emphasis on crowd pleasing thrills. While not being as meta as those movies are, the director definitely takes great care to acknowledge King's influence while avoiding it becoming nothing but a glorified easter egg hunt. There's also an emotional depth to the story revolving around family, parenting, and brotherhood that adds a bit of a grounded quality as a nice contrast to the blood, shock, and mayhem.

One of my thoughts on the film is how fun it was to watch in the theater with a full audience as there are plenty of moments that take advantage of that shared experience. That being said, I realize that I'm finally getting to this review over a year later so viewing at home (it's currently available on Hulu) is really the only option at this point. Still, this is a movie I would highly recommend no matter the format, especially fans of horror, fans of Osgood Perkins, and/or fans of Stephen King.

Thank you for reading this review and thank you for your patience with some of these movies that I've taken way too long to post reviews for. Stay tuned for more coming soon!