The Monkey

Ever since their father (Adam Scott, TV's 'Severance') disappeared, twins Hal and Bill (Christian Convery, "Cocaine Bear") have been trying to assemble his presence from the objects left in his closet. One day Hal finds what looks like an ornate hat box way in the back labelled 'Organ Grinder Monkey - Like Life,' but the twins will soon find that it is a curse and the loved ones around them will begin to lose their lives to "The Monkey."

Laura's Review: C-

Writer/director Osgood Perkins ("Longlegs") had a promising debut with the effective little chiller "The Blackcoat's Daughter," then became a brand
three films later with "Longlegs," a triumph of craft and disappointment of narrative. Now, adapting Stephen King's short story, he's taken another step backwards, changing the tale into one of hostility between twins adorned with a supposed message about the fragility of life and increasingly cartoonish deaths. The only word I can use to describe this is godawful.

Hal, the younger of the twins by minutes, is bullied not only by girls at school but by Bill, who is so obnoxious we just can't buy into the reality of the Shelburne family, which includes sunny mom Lois (Tatiana Maslany, TV's 'Orphan Black') whose response to bad news is to dance it away. Once the boys realize that winding up the monkey will result in death, having lost both babelicious babysitter Annie Wilkes (Danica Dreyer sharing Kathy Bates' character name from King's "Misery") and their mom, they chain it up within its box and throw it down a well. The orphaned twins are rehomed to Casco, Maine, with their Uncle Chip (Perkins), who informs them that he and their Aunt Ida (Sarah Levy, TV's 'Schitt's Creek') are swingers who never wanted kids, a sentiment he won't live to regret for long.

We'll then meet the adult Hal (Theo James, "Divergent") working as a local grocery checkout, long estranged from Bill and about to take his son Petey (Colin O'Brien, "Wonka") on a road trip before he bows out, allowing the boy to be adopted by schmarmy self-help author and self-proclaimed parenting expert Ted (Elijah Wood), the partner of the boy's mother (Laura Mennell). Petey is perplexed by his dad's distance, something we realize is intended to keep the boy safe, just like Hal and Bill's own father. But Bill lurks out there, plotting to take control of the monkey, convinced that he who turns the key is never killed.

There are exactly three good things in "The Monkey" and one of them is the clip of Aunt Ida's death that was released back in December to whet audience appetite - it's the only death that has any real bite to it. The other is the prologue which shows Shelburne Sr. attempt to get rid of the monkey only to have it take another life (Shafin Karim, "Longlegs") in a scene that evokes an honest laugh. The last is the design of the monkey itself, a genuinely creepy object with its deep set glass eyes and an automated grin which reveals disturbingly yellow teeth. Attempts at humor, such as the awkward priest (Nicco Del Rio) who presides over early funerals, fall flat. In fact the film may have been a lot more successful if it had played it straight and went for realistic gore rather than the obviously artificial gags used here (Uncle Chip is killed in his sleeping bag when he's run over by a stampede of horses, his trampled corpse described as looking like cherry pie - more like cherry tomatoes - but nothing resembling human remains. Others vanish in a spray of red mist.).

James makes Bill an over the top C movie villain and a morose sad sack as Hal and there is no one in the cast to remotely care about. The film's final scene, a tableau of death in Casco, ends with a gag that's been done before and better.

Neon releases "The Monkey" in theaters on 2/21/25.