By MICHAEL GINGOLD
Starring Theo James, Tatiana Maslany and Christian Convery
Written and directed by Osgood Perkins
Neon
It’s a bit of a shame, but perhaps not surprising, that THE MONKEY’s marketing reveals that “Everybody Dies,” along with the specifics of some (but not all, thankfully) of those demises. Clearly Neon is sending a message that this Osgood Perkins film (opening February 21) carries a different tone than his somber, brooding LONGLEGS and other previous features. Gleeful splatstick and elaborate exterminations are the order of the day in Perkins’ adaptation of the Stephen King story, though it’s a film franchise from the first decade of the 2000s that seems to have been just as much of an influence. Basically, it’s Perkins making a FINAL DESTINATION movie (coincidentally, in the same year that series is being rebooted), and doing so with an enthusiasm that gives the audience a bloody good time from the very first scene.
That opener establishes the premise of a toy monkey (which beats a drum rather than clapping cymbals as in King’s story and that ubiquitous SKELETON CREW cover art) with a deadly curse on it. “Turn the key and see what happens” goes its instructions, and woe to anyone who is nearby when you do, since they’re likely to fall victim to whatever lethally employable objects are handy. The story proper begins in 1999, when young Hal Shelburne (Christian Convery) finds the plaything–known as the Organ Grinder Monkey, a moniker that ain’t kidding–while digging through a closet, and the next body soon falls. Hal already has enough problems–he’s bullied by his twin brother Bill (also Convery)–before it becomes evident that they’ve inherited an awful family heirloom from their absent father. They try to dispose of it, and succeed in stopping the bloodshed…for a while.
Cut to 25 years later, Hal and Bill (now played by Theo James) are estranged, and Hal’s relationship with his teenage son Petey (Colin O’Brien) isn’t much better. (He is now divorced, and Elijah Wood has a very funny extended cameo as his ex-wife’s new husband.) Attempting one last bonding excursion with Petey, Hal is horrified when a new series of outrageous deaths begins, realizing that the monkey is back in his life. And so that road trip becomes a jaunt back to the Maine town where he grew up, and a reunion with Bill–who may have a very different point of view about the monkey and its mayhem.
Perkins manages the not inconsiderable trick of keeping us invested with the seriousness of Hal’s plight while fully enjoying the over-the-top destruction of a number of innocent victims. The deaths are conceived with wicked imagination and staged with in-your-face brio, combining showy gore (makeup effects designed by LONGLEGS’ Werner Pretorius) and digital effects for maximum impact. At the same time, Perkins carries over the tropes that worked so well in his earlier work–rural settings bleakly photographed (solidly ominous work by DP Nico Aguilar), scary music (by Edo Van Breeman) that swells only to be abruptly cut off–while sometimes giving them sneaky little twists. One character’s brutal demise is revealed via a particularly funny, sudden edit.
In one sense, THE MONKEY is a kind of inversion of the FINAL DESTINATION saga, in which the characters are specifically doomed by their communal avoidance of what should have been their deaths. This movie, on the other hand, posits the monkey’s fatal influence (which is never explicated) as a random factor that can lash out and dispatch anyone. Not that Perkins intends a deep meditation on fate here; it’s more accurate to say that he’s following one of Joe Bob Briggs’ rules for a good horror movie: Anyone can die at any time. Hal and Bill’s mother, played by genre fave Tatiana Maslany, puts it even more succinctly: “Everybody dies. That’s life.”
Mom isn’t the only one who expresses a more irreverent attitude toward death; so does a black-comic priest (Nicco Del Rio) in a funeral scene. So does Perkins himself, who seems liberated here by the opportunity to flesh (and blood) out King’s brief tale, having all kinds of fun with the details–like the recurring appearance of a bunch of cheerleaders–and throwing in the occasional sneaky in-joke, including a babysitter named Annie Wilkes. James and Convery (both acting very effectively against themselves) give the proceedings an emotional center for all the grisly insanity spinning around them, and Perkins himself has a very amusing turn as the boys’ uncle Chip. He’s clearly having a good time in the role, though given the overall high-spirited bloodthirstiness he brings to THE MONKEY, it’s easy to suspect he took it just so he could inflict one of the most extravagant expirations on himself.
