Writer/director Osgood (Oz) Perkins hits yet another, nightmarish nerve with a new chiller: Neon's The Monkey, based on the popular, Stephen King's Skeleton Crew tale.
Produced by James (Aquaman/Annabelle) Wan, Perkins' adaptation places the cursed, mechanical toy upfront and center. Its origin (its curse) is vague (rather like King's Christine, though don't such "needful things" typically usher a climatic, apocalyptic turn?). And yet despite its haziness, the deadly results are succinct, with carnage occurring whenever folks come near the forbidding, wind-up, anthropomorphized drummer: a deluxe variant of the cymbal-clapping, pop-cultural staple known as the Jolly Chimp, featured in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, How the Grinch Stole Christmas 2000, Toy Story 3, Amityville Clownhouse, Amityville Toybox/Legacy and (with a few quaint tweaks) The Conjuring saga.
As with the short story, the movie monkey is an inherited commodity, first procured by a father, played by Adam Scott, who attempts to destroy it, only then to vanish without a trace. It's later discovered by his at-odds, twin sons, Hal and Bill, played as youths by Christian Convery and as adults by Theo (Divergent/Archive) James, who recognize the thing's unearthly but palpable threat and at one point, dispatch it to a well, but as we've learned from Friday the 13th: the Series, it's hard to keep any quality, cursed object down. Hal fully acknowledges this, which is why he only sees his son, Colin O'Brien's Petey, once a year, in hopes of snipping any extended exposure that could pass the family imprecation onto the lad.
In all honesty (and contrary to the movie's publicity), not all participants die by the toy's hand ... er, rather paw, but it's safe to say that no one is safe within the vicarious scheme, which includes Laura Mendell as Hal's disgruntled ex; Elijah (The Lord of the Rings) Wood as her parental-guru spouse; Tatiana (She-Hulk) Maslany as the twins' endearing mom; Rohan (Halloween Ends) Campbell as an opportunist youth; Tess Dengenstein as a naïve, real-estate agent; Danica Dryer as a voluptuous babysitter, Nicco Del Rio as a flabbergasted priest; Sarah (Surreal Estate) Levy as the boys' obliging Aunt Ida and Perkins as their slick Uncle Chip.
The destructive spree is similar to the recent Heart Eyes, with a blatant, Ten Little Indians/Halloween/Friday the 13th/Final Destination body count unfurling and becomes more of an exercise in lampooning terror than one of serious twists, content to keep viewers anxious for the next kill and all those that follow.
The titular toy, with its bulging eyes and sinister sneer, instills the anxiousness to a tee, behaving in the tradition of Annabelle or Talky Tina (with an underlying, Pennywise drive), tending to resurface without rhyme or reason. It becomes an agitating symbol in this regard, alluding to any bad-luck stretch that any of us might face, though devoid of the buckets of blood.
Though Perkins does a standup job whisking the story along, the content isn't as creepy or complex as his Longlegs or The Blackcoat's Daughter. This is a different animal (pun intended) for the writer/director, and yet for the sake of stirring consistent shocks, it sure delivers the goods and with a clever, cutting surge that surpasses King's founding fable.
As an owner of one such monkey toy, Perkins has given me cause to pause whenever I now pass it. In my book, this is an indisputable sign of a successful, horror picture, and if time respects this one (and I believe it will), The Monkey (and its modified Jolly Chimp) should, by golly, be remembered well enough to achieve classic status.
