The Monkey: Let’s start by showing y’all the trailers shall we?

Yes that’s right folks, today we’re here to talk about another Stephen King adaptation, also I need y’all to understand something before u go see this film.

This isn’t a horror movie, as some y’all might think it is. It definitely has a creepy vibe, but mainly this film is a dark comedy, Emphasis on comedy.

Also this film is based on a short story.

I read something that made me groan, so get this in thr original book the monkey toy had cymbals instead of a drum, reason Oz Perkins couldn’t use tne cymbals is because.

Get this Disney tried copyrighting that monkey toy with the cymbals because that version of the monkey was in Toy Story 3, this reminds me of that time Disney tried copyrighting Day Of The Dead.

U can’t copyright a holiday, let alone a holiday u didn’t create, jeepers Disney is greedy.

I don’t know how to describe this film, or if there’s any film to compare this to.

The films tone is unique, it is an extremely gory film (yes it’s Rated R for strong gore and smoking oh and cussing). The film doesn’t shy away from graphic brutal deaths, most of which are treated as serious.

However the film is drenched in dark humor, so really the deaths come off somewhat comedic. No one in this film are characters, they are caricatures. That’s not a bad thing, again just setting y’all expectations.

Side note idk why this film is labeled as a horror movie, it’s definitely not that. “The best horror movie of late” uhhh that would require this film to be a horror movie.

Also to give an idea how absurd this film is, the film is made by Oz Perkins. Yes that guy who brought us Longlegs that released last year.

Just to give u an example of what sorta tone this film has, check out this car clip from Longlegs, it should explain what sorta tone ue going in for.

“Mommmyyyyy! Dadddddddy!”

Also James Wan helped make this film as well, 2 great horor directors.

Also, Oz Perkins carries over his unique filming over from Longlegs, making his films have that old grainy style

The comedy in this film will hinder on if u like the film or not, let me get the rundown out of the way then I’ll give some examples of the dark humor (I won’t spoil who specifically dies).

I’ll be vague, but I will give examples, then I’ll give a rating then spoil the 3rd act.

So essentially the plot boils down to, these 2 twins named

Hal and Bill, (Bill is the older brother and he’s a complete douchbag to his younger brother)

Who grow up with their mother (played by that she Hulk actress) because their father left them years back, his excuse he went to go get a smoke.

Wow what a stupid reason, anyways he leaves behind random items behind, one of which is this creepy looking monkey with a horrific grin and eyes.

This toy plays the drums, the tag in the box says “twist the key and see what happens).

When the monkey plays its drums, someone dies horrifically and brutally. Think Final Destination but with a toy monkey.

Also ha ha I get it, Mon-key, emphasis on key. Because the whole thing is twist the “key” and see what happens. Anyways a whole lot of deaths accure and chaos happens.

But with all the tone of a dark comedy that isn’t taking anything seriously. I love the film for that.

So years later when Hal and his brother Grow older after an accident in their childhood (what’s this accident? Will talk about it in spoilers).

They split apart and Hal is a dead beat dad who has a son who he keeps his distance away from, unfortunately the monkey returns and dead bodies start piling up, will our main character stop the monkey?

Also his brother contacts him to go find the monkey to prevent it from someone twisting the key. Will our main caricature make it out a live?

All will be revealed in spoilers, but now let’s give examples of how Goofy this film is.

So one specific death that involves a woman getting decapitated, at the funeral at the church. This priest who I could only describe as brutally honest, says something among the lines of

“This sucks, life sucks, uhhhh people die, why her? Why not u or u or u? Flip a quarter, heads or tales and see who dies, but not her head of course because it was cut off”

Ok so right there, if that sorta comedy didn’t do it for u then this film won’t be for u.

Also shortly after, the mother is sitting with her 2 twin sons and she tells them essentially that everyone dies. Ur gonna die, I’m gonna die. Ur friends are gonna die, your friends’ parents are gonna die. Their pets are gonna die.

Sometimes in a freak accident, but we all die. Yeah because that’s a normal thing to tell ur 2 kids after a funeral, everyone dies. He he he he.

Also there’s a scene later where this dead body is being taken outside of a house on a gurney, all the while a group of sheer ladies are outside the house and they start to sheer “yayyyy they are bringing out the dead body! Yayyyy”.

What the heck am I watching? Also, there’s a death scene where this elderly lady gets up after hearing the drums somewhere.

She puts her head face first in front of the stove when she hewrs it go on, seriously now ur just asking for something bad to happen to u. Then her head gets set on fire.

Instead of this film being taken seriously or this scene speck, we see her running and screaming to the outside where there’s a boque of flowers which she accidentally steps in, gets stuck in her foot and she runs into her mailbox face first.

Alright so this is the type of movie then I guess, slap stick morbid deaths.

Also there’s a scene where at a motel, a woman is about to go swimming in the pool, but all a sudden the ventilation vent falls off the roof and lands into the water which causes electricity to spark out of nowhere.

Then she jumps into the pool and instantly explodes into pieces (because that’s how that works). This scene felt like a gory version of a skit from Spongebob Squarepants.

It was about this point I started realizing ohhhh ok yeah this really isn’t a horror movie, this is just straight up dumb satire.

Also Oz Perkins gave an answer to why he has people blowing up in this film, he said I just wanted to have bodies blow up so I did so.

Yeah guess that’s a reason, a dumb reason but a reason nonetheless.

Also, there’s a character who only appears twice, he’s our main caricatures boss. And his whole shtick is he smokes a vape and just says man that sucks.

Heck his death scene involves him walking into a poll, then the vape being logged into his throat as he says that sucks.

Yeah that sucks, yeah that sucks that ur dead that’s for sure. Like I said caricatures.

If u haven’t caught onto that earlier on in the film, also as stated everyone in this film are caricatures, and no one reacts to anything correctly. Again that comedy is either gonna do it for u or not.

What doesn’t work for me is there’s a moment in the film where the tone gets slightly serious, but then goes straight back to slapstick dark comedy after.

So with that legs get the rating out of the way, overall I still did find myself enjoying it, except for as stated 1 issue. So overall I’ll give The Monkey a solid 8.5/10, warning spoilers ahead y’all been warned ⚠️,
____________________________________________________

So what’s the 2 or technically 1 thing that didn’t work for me, we get 2 dark moments that just get glossed over afterwards with more slap stick dark humor.

Actually scratch that it’s like 3 or 4 issues I had.

First scene, the mother dies in a horrific way after her son Hal tries to use the monkey to kill his older brother, instead while Hal comes home and goes to the kitchen to ask his mom what’s for dinner.

While she’s making icing, she’s all of a sudden bleeding out her ear and it trickles down her neck. She turns around and she’s twitching a bit, then blood cokes out her eyes, nose mouth, and ears. Hal screams and the mother falls face-first onto the counter then collapses on the floor.

We then see her funeral where Hal hasn’t come to terms with her death, he gets up and says nice joke u can wake up now, this forever traumatizes Hal because he believes if he takes off his funeral suit someone will die and no one else he cares for will die if he keeps it on.

Wow this is some heavy stuff, also that death is just bleach (compared to every other death scene).

Second scene, Bill and his son who he only has 1 week left to hangout with him then his ex wife’s new husband is taking ownership rights to his son.

We don’t fully get to explore how much this is impacting his son, we do see him getting mad at his dad, reasons

For being vague about his past and any family members he has.

For cutting himself off from him.

For probably wants to ditch him for his mother’s new boyfriend (played by Frodo!)

But besides that superficial basic information, we really don’t get anything beyond that. Heck, it seems the film doesn’t want to dread too much on that, besides got to get to the 3rd act and wrap up this film.

Again, sets up something mature/heavy. Then dumps it for dark slapstick.

Why did the film decide to shift tones to a darker grim tone? The first half did in a way feel more light-hearted (take that as u will) but the second half was essentially like oh right we need this to be a movie.

Give the audience some character development, although that character development is superficial. There’s no character arc unfortunately because no one here are characters, they are caricatures.

Oh also 3rd act spoilers, his brother Hal is behind the murders, yeah he had this teen who has long black hair (or as I call him the discount Eddie Munson) ( also yes that’s Corey Cuningham playing this guy) (because remember him from Halloween Ends?) go locate the monkey for him.

This guy gets attached to the monkey he wants it back once he gives Hal the monkey.

Side note the actor who plays both older Bill and Hal looks very similar to James Franco.

Anyways so that Eddie Munson character dresses as his dead beat father who’s a cop and forces Bill and his son at gun point to drive to this building that Hal lives at in the forest.

He wants Bills son to go inside and retrieve the monkey, funny the kid is going in because Hal wants Bills son to take his position and turn the key. Or he will keep turning it.

Spoilers on why, turns out he wants his brother Bill dead because he realized he accidentally killed their mother and now he’s resentful of him.

So he let himself go and grew this ugly looking mullet and stitched up his old funeral clothes and puts it back on, yeah this guy really is pathetic. Found the monkey and had the key with him because he found it in the well they tossed the monkey down.

Also, remember how I said this film’s tone is all over the place? Well when we get a monolog from the evil brother on why he wanted to go search for the monkey, he mentioned he saw the monkey everywhere.

Then we see him at a strip club watching a poll dancer, as she aims her head into focus we see the stripper’s head is the monkey.

Ok so sometimes I can’t tell if this film wasn’t to take itself seriously or not, I say that because the deaths are graphic and sometimes taken seriously (sometimes), but then there’s just slapstick humor tossed into it.

So the son refuses to use it, so Hal tries to force the monkey to kill Bill, all a sudden. The monkey starts slamming his drum sticks rapidly. Then Hal looks outside and sees several houses of fire and a plane crash.

Uhhhhhhh, then a bride comes crashing out of the celling with her boque of flowers landing on Hal, uhhhhhhh.

So Bill comes in and confronts his bother, oh this happens after a swarm of hornets from a nest kills discount Eddie Munson by flying straight into his mouth and killing him from the inside, uh eww.

The 2 botheres fix things between each other, Bill offers him a hand. He helps his brother up but then the monkey smacks down on the drum again and one of Hal’s contractions that involves a bowling ball come out of a Canon. Shoots at Hal which blows his head off, yikes.

Film ends with the 2 of them riding in their car, witnessing people dead around them, a guy impailed into a tree with a surfboard.

A woman running in circles with her stroller that has a baby in it on fire. Anyways they stop at a red light and they discuss they need to own the monkey and never twist the key.

Then all a sudden a ghost spectral on a horse comes walking down the street by them, they just give him a nod and he walks off. The fuck? Movie are u even gonna explain that?

What’s with the ghost spectral? Oh OK, anyways ginal shot of this film is of those same sheer leaders from earlier but now they are on a school bus, with all their heads sticking out the window.

Next thing u know a truck comes raming by which decapitates all them, uhhhhhh the end?

Which brings me to my last issue, the film just ends so vaguely. I don’t usually have an issue with that but I can’t tell if it’s either an autistic decision to leave it up to anyone’s interpretation. Or if the film is just that messy.

Yeah that’s definitely a way to end a film that’s for sure, anyways I hope y’all enjoyed this review as much as I enjoyed writing it.