The Monkey

The second movie in my double feature at the Broadway last night was The Monkey.  I was really looking forward to this and, even though a lot of liberties are taken with the original short story by Stephen King, I enjoyed it.  Petey Shelburn (Adam Scott) attempts to get rid of a toy monkey before abandoning his twin sons Bill and Hal (Christian Convery) but they eventually find it in a closet of his belongings.  They wind a key, which makes the monkey play its drum, and their babysitter Annie (Danica Dreyer) is decapitated in a freakish accident soon after.  Hal attributes Annie's death to the monkey and, after Bill bullies him in a cruel incident at school, he turns the key hoping that Bill will be its next victim but it is his mother Lois (Tatiana Maslany) who dies.  They are taken in by their aunt Ida (Sarah Levy) and uncle Chip (Osgood Perkins) who live in a small town in Mane but, when Chip becomes the next victim, Bill and Hal throw the monkey in a well.  Decades later, the brothers (now played by Theo James) are estranged and Hal is horrified when he realizes that the monkey has mysteriously reappeared after Ida dies in another unusual accident.  Terrified for his young son Petey (Colin O'Brien), from whom is is also estranged, Hal returns to Maine in order to find the monkey but he finds more carnage and an even bigger threat.  This is absolutely bonkers with some really wild and gruesome scenes (my favorites are when someone is electrocuted in a swimming pool and when someone's head is smashed by a swinging bowling ball) but I think this absurdist tone works because it emphasizes the irrational fear of death that keeps both Hal and Bill from living.  James gives a great performance, as both the sympathetic Hal and the villainous Bill, because it is his reaction to the almost comical deaths that creates the tension.  I also enjoyed several hilarious cameos, particularly Nicco Del Rio as a clueless priest and Elijah Wood as young Petey's stepfather.  Finally, the design of the monkey is really unnerving and I found the eyes to be especially malevolent.  A lot of horror movies that I've seen in the past year begin with an intriguing premise and then unravel as they go on, including Longlegs which was also directed by Osgood Perkins, but I actually loved the ending of The Monkey because it reiterates the theme that death is inevitable and you have to find a way to live anyway.  I highly recommend this to fans of horror.