“Everybody dies, and that’s life.” This repeated line in Oz Perkins’ twisted “The Monkey” sums up its main theme of the inevitable brutality of life, something the filmmaker knows all too well. The director of “The Blackcoat’s Daughter,” “I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House,” and “Longlegs” may be adapting a short story by Stephen King, but he’s also very clearly telling his own story in this demented horror/comedy about the cruelty of the world. The main comparison for most viewers will be “Final Destination,” but those films were arguably more hopeful, believe it or not, featuring characters who strived for and often found a way to cheat death. There’s no cheating in “The Monkey.” It’s coming for you. And it’s gonna be messy.
From the beginning, Perkins is playing with tone in a way that separates “The Monkey” from his more serious, somber fare. If the grindhouse credits font doesn’t give it away, the sight of a bloodied Adam Scott carrying a toy monkey should. Eschewing an origin story to cold open with a shattered man who now fears a child’s plaything is a brilliant tone-setter, both gruesomely defining the black comedy register of the film and reminding us of how assured Perkins can be as a filmmaker. It’s a toy monkey that malevolently bangs a drum, leading to unimaginably brutal death. What else do you need to know?
After that remarkable prologue, “The Monkey” jumps forward to introduce us to twins Hal and Bill Shelburne (Christian Convery as kids; Theo James as adults). They find dad’s toy monkey–even though we saw him destroy it … never a good sign–and turn the key in its back, leading to a grisly death for their babysitter later that night. They discover that every time they turn the key, someone ends up dead, even their cynical mother (Tatiana Maslany). They try to destroy the monkey, even throwing it down a well, but it returns years later to drive a wedge between the brothers and cause more unimaginable havoc.
And I do mean havoc. Perkins is having an absolute blast figuring out inventive ways to murder people. One unforgettable death involves an electrified swimming pool; another has an almost cartoonish degree of carnage after a woman’s head lights on fire. None of this is supposed to be taken as seriously as practically any scene in “Longlegs,” and yet it creates a different kind of tension, one that suggests that death isn’t just inevitable but right outside your door as you read this. Death doesn’t just come for us all, it’s bored from old-fashioned demises and wants to do something more inventive this time. Perkins keeps upping the ante on his film’s comedic brand of insanity. Fires, beheadings, a well-placed shotgun–it’s almost like death has a sense of humor in this movie.
That could be because Perkins realized that the best way to stop crying is to laugh in the face of the Grim Reaper. As for how this is as much Perkins’ story as King’s, it’s worth noting that the son of Anthony Perkins suffered unimaginably when his mother, Berry Berenson, was killed in the attacks on 9/11 as a passenger on American Airlines Flight 11. Did someone turn a monkey’s key that day? It’s not essential to know this background before viewing “The Monkey,” but it undeniably adds poignancy to the entire affair if you do, and nods to absentee fathers feel like they could be tied back to Osgood’s relationship to Anthony if someone wanted to connect those dots too. (Although “Longlegs” is more clearly the film about Anthony while this one is about Berry. While being so tonally different, they make a phenomenal double feature.)
Perkins has always been a formally confident filmmaker, but “The Monkey” contains some of his most striking imagery, shot through with malice by Nico Aguilar, and perfectly assembled by editors Graham Fortin & Greg Ng (who also cut “Longlegs”). “The Monkey” hums, wasting no time in its relatively brief running time (98 minutes). There’s no fat on this one, which can’t be said about a lot of modern horror movies, or a lot of films adapted from short stories.
All of the personal details about Oz Perkins add to the appreciation of this clever flick, but it’s also a film that feels like it pushes back against the “explainer” culture of elevated horror. Yes, it’s about the filmmaker’s mother–how could it not be?–but it’s also about the random cruelty of the world, one that can steal a mother from a child as easily as turning a key in the back of a toy monkey. Sometimes even death needs a laugh.
Opens on February 21st.
