It\u2019s a smart set-up; we learn the logistics, so for the roughly hour and half that follows, when the drumstick goes up, we\u2019re waiting for the trap to snap. We meet our protagonist, Hal, as a boy, a picked-on and lonely kid whose only company is in the form of his douchey, (barely) older twin brother. They find the monkey, and its instructions (\u201cTurn the key, see what happens\u201d), and \u201caccidents\u201d start happening. \u201cIt\u2019s a bad\u2026 magic\u2026 killer monkey!\u201d Hal explains, and that\u2019s the sum of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Monkey <\/em>is well-directed at a technical level\u2014the craft is impeccable, Perkins builds his dread with well-practiced skill, he stages some inventive kills (and close calls), and his sound design is playful and unnerving. And the monkey, by now a standby in genre movies (King\u2019s story was originally published in 1980, then expanded for his 1985 collection Skeleton Crew<\/em>), is appropriately creepy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But Perkins\u2019s mastery of tone, so flawless in his previous pictures, is absolutely out to lunch here. His screenplay departs sharply from the spirit of King\u2019s story, which he\u2019s turned from a mournful creep-out into a broad, silly horror-comedy. (\u201cIt wasn’t going to be dreadfully sombre,\u201d he explained<\/a> in an interview with SFX magazine<\/a>. \u201cIt was going to be more comedic, and cosy, which I think seemed correct for a movie about a toy.\u201d) But horror-comedy is a tricky hybrid, harder than it looks; laughing and screaming can operate from the same impulse, relieving and releasing tension, but it\u2019s easy for them to work at cross-purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s what happens here. Too many of the comic interludes and asides simply aren\u2019t funny\u2014 and it\u2019s not that they\u2019re just <\/em>unfunny, but desperately, direly, annoyingly unfunny, straining and sweaty, like watching a YouTube video by a bunch of improv comics you\u2019ll (hopefully) never see again. Perkins fills these scenes with broad caricatures, witless dialogue, and stranded actors \u201ctrying to be funny,\u201d which, as ever, is merely uncomfortable. Some of the bits are so unsuccessful, like the rambling eulogy of a clueless pastor or Elijah Wood\u2019s undercooked cameo as a parenting guru, that they seem to beg for explanations that never appear. By the time the cheerleaders show up at a grisly crime scene, The Monkey <\/em>feels less like Perkins\u2019s Longlegs <\/em>follow-up and more like one of those dreadful \u201890s Zucker-Abrams-Zucker rip-offs, like Spy Hard<\/em> or Repossessed<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a general rule, laughs work best as temporary relief for scares, and some of the sideways comic material works\u2014the nihilistic rants of the boys\u2019 single mom (a sharp and funny Tatiana Maslany), or the resignation of their eventual caretaker, Uncle Chip (played by Perkins himself), who shrugs, \u201cWe\u2019re gonna do our very best with you boys. It\u2019s just that our very best might be\u2026 pretty bad.\u201d Theo James does his best with the dual role of the grown twins, but he can\u2019t do much; one is a cypher and the other is a cartoon. Christian Convery, however, is so good in the richer roles of the younger twins that I didn\u2019t realize, while watching, that they were played by the same actor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Overall, The Monkey <\/em>is a gross miscalculation, which is a real shame considering the picture\u2019s pedigree. The comedy undercuts the tension, and reduces any of the emotional stakes Perkins attempts with the ostensibly earnest estranged father\/son and brother\/brother material late in the picture. Perkins is a skilled craftsman of horror and suspense, and while I admire his attempt to expand his toolbox, he simply doesn\u2019t have a flair for comedy. Remember when Aaron Sorkin insisted on writing the wacky, SNL<\/em>-style sketches for Studio 60<\/em>, and basically undid the show in the process? I\u2019m not saying this is like that. But it\u2019s not not<\/em> like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The Monkey” is in theaters this weekend.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/monkey2-1024x512.jpg\")
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