Don’t Fear ‘The Monkey’

Drumroll, please! The streak of good Stephen King film adaptations continues. Hot off the success of ‘Longlegs’ just seven months ago, writer-director Oz Perkins brings us his blood-soaked vision of Stephen King’s fan-favorite short story ‘The Monkey.’

Let’s get this out of the way. It’s not the most faithful adaptation of King’s source material, which originally ran in Gallery in 1980. Most are more familiar with the updated version published in 1985 in the story collection Skeleton Crew. The film only slightly rewards those who’ve read either version.

THE MONKEY ★★★★ (4/5 stars)
Directed by: Oz Perkins
Written by: Oz Perkins
Starring: Theo James, Tatiana Maslany, Christian Convery, and Colin O’Brien
Running time: 98 mins

In this adaptation, young Hal (Christian Convery) and his twin brother Bill (also Convery) discover a toy monkey in the closet of their estranged airline pilot father (Adam Scott in a cold open cameo). The monkey immediately begins causing chaos every time it bares its teeth and bangs its little snare drum. First, their babysitter dies in a freak Benihana accident. You read that correctly. Then, Hal winds up the monkey hoping to kill his bully of a brother and instead their mother (Tatiana Maslany) dies of an aneurysm. Their weird uncle Chip (Perkins) croaking is the last straw. Hal chops up the monkey with a cleaver, and he and Bill chain it up in its original box before dumping it down a deep well.

Decades later, adult Hal (Theo James) lives the life of a man who’s chosen isolation to avoid bringing danger to his loved ones. He no longer speaks to his brother and is divorced. He has one-week-a-year visitation with his son Petey (Colin O’Brien). It just so happens that during that visitation week, the monkey reemerges and causes the hilariously calamitous death of the boys’ Aunt Ida (Sarah Levy). Bill reaches out to Hal, sharing his suspicion that the monkey must be back in their lives and they need to do something about it. The body count accumulates from there.

Perkins’ main departure from the source material is in tone. While the short story was somber and built up a sense of dread, Perkins approaches the story as a pure dark comedy, reveling in the absurdity of a cursed killer toy that announces its intentions. The ensuing Rube Goldberg-esque death gags are transcendent. ‘Final Destination’ walked so ‘The Monkey’ could run.

This is the latest in the horror trend of choosing to go for broke on levity, gross outs, and fun, only glossing past dour themes like generational trauma. Cinema is all the better for it, and we should keep banging a drum, demanding the silly, entertaining hits keep coming.