The Monkey: When a Killer Premise Falls Flat

I’ve been anxiously awaiting The Monkey ever since the film was first announced. It’s based on a short story by my favorite author, Stephen King, and even more importantly, it was made by the guy who wrote and directed last year’s horror hit Longlegs. That movie captured the essence of evil in a way most horror films can only dream of, so when the credits began to roll, I immediately started looking forward to the director’s next project. I obviously had no idea what it would be, but I knew I had to watch it as soon as it hit theaters. That time is finally upon us, and after catching an early screening of the movie, I’m sad to report that it’s incredibly disappointing.

The Monkey was written and directed by Osgood Perkins, and it stars Theo James, Tatiana Maslany, Christian Convery, and Colin O'Brien. In the film, two twin boys, Hal and Bill, stumble upon an instrument of pure evil. They find a toy monkey left behind by their father, but as you might be able to guess, this thing isn’t just a toy. It has the power to cause random, Final Destination-esque deaths, and no matter what the brothers do to get rid of it, it always finds its way back to them.

On paper, that might sound like an intriguing premise for a horror movie, but a film can’t get by on its premise alone. It has to build an intriguing story around its bare-bones concept, and that’s where The Monkey falls short. This movie is about an hour and forty minutes, and for the first hour or so of its runtime, it doesn’t have much of a discernible plot.

It’s basically just a string of deaths caused by the titular monkey, and what little story there is (even in the final forty minutes) feels more like an excuse to showcase these gruesome kills than a worthwhile narrative in its own right. To make matters worse, none of the characters in this film are particularly likable. Few of them stick around long enough to make much of an impression, and the ones that do are as bland and one-dimensional as you’d expect from a story this light on plot.

The closest there is to a bright spot is actor Theo James’s performance as the adult versions of Bill and Hal, but even he’s very much a mixed bag. On the one hand, his performance as the socially reclusive Hal is quite good. The guy has an awkward, almost nerdy air about him, so James makes you believe that he really does try to avoid people as much as possible.

Unfortunately, that’s all there is to the character, so even though James’s performance is admirable, Hal still ends up being as flat as everyone else. In contrast, Bill is a complete trainwreck. He’s just as uninteresting as his monotonous brother, but this time, we don’t even get a good performance. He feels more like a caricature than a real person, so whenever he was on screen, I simply couldn’t take the movie seriously.

On top of those boring characters, The Monkey also features some pitch-black humor. The deaths and their surrounding circumstances are often played for laughs, and if you don’t enjoy this kind of comedy, you’re probably going to be very uncomfortable for most of the film. Personally, I enjoy dark humor, so I got a few good chuckles from these gags, but only a few. Most of them simply fell flat in my eyes, so while a number of people in my theater laughed out loud at almost all the jokes, I mostly just sat there with a disappointed look on my face.

Next, we have to talk about the horror in The Monkey. If you’re familiar with Osgood Perkins, or even if you just saw Longlegs, you’re probably expecting this movie to be an intensely atmospheric slow burn, but that’s not at all the case. Sure, the filmmaker’s characteristic atmosphere pops up every now and again, but it never stays for very long. It’s just there for a few brief shots, and then it disappears.

Instead, this film takes a much more slasher-esque approach to its horror. Like a typical slice-and-dice flick, this one is all about the kills. It revels in dispatching its victims in gruesome and creative ways, and it expects the audience to enjoy this kind of low-brow horror as well.

To be fair, I’m not completely against this brand of terror. As I said in my Heart Eyes review, I’m generally not big on slashers, but there are a number of exceptions (including Heart Eyes itself!). I just don’t like slashers that are all about the kills. I need something more–like an intriguing story, likable characters, or knee-slapping comedy–but The Monkey doesn’t have any of that. The horror is the only thing this movie does well, but unfortunately, it’s not the kind of horror I typically enjoy on its own.

Last but not least, I want to talk about the message of The Monkey. Given my problems with the film, you might not expect it to have any sort of deeper meaning, but it actually does. The randomness and unfairness of the toy monkey’s kills is supposed to be an allegory for the way death operates in the real world, and if you ask me, it’s pretty spot-on.
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Sure, we Catholics believe that God can bring good out of even the greatest of tragedies, but that doesn’t mean he actually causes these tragedies. He simply uses them the way a master painter can incorporate stray marks into a beautiful picture, but on their own, they really are random and unfair. There’s a reason the Hail Holy Queen calls this life a “valley of tears,” and on a thematic level, The Monkey absolutely nails that uncomfortable truth.

But a good message can’t salvage a bad movie, so at the end of the day, I have to say that The Monkey left me sorely disappointed. It was one of my most anticipated films of the year, but its overemphasis on creative deaths, to the detriment of the characters and the story, makes for one of the most unsatisfying cinematic experiences of the year so far.