The Reel Review
25 years after their discovery of a mysterious evil monkey toy spawned a series of gruesome deaths, the now estranged twin brothers reunite when the evil monkey toy begins a new killing rampage. Theo James, Christian Convery (Cocaine Bear) and Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black) star in this horror/comedy based on a short story from Stephen King’s 1985 anthology Skeleton Crew.
Once you realize that writer/director Osgood Perkins’ mother died on one of the airplanes that was hijacked and crashed into the World Trade Center on 9/11, his story about the cruel randomness of death – and his demented, nihilistic attempt to poke fun at it – makes a lot more sense. It doesn’t automatically make for a good movie, however.
Yes, there are some spectacularly gruesome kills that are impressive in their creativity – particularly those involving Sarah Levy (Schitt’s Creek) as Aunt Ida, Tess Degenstein as realtor Barbara and Osgood himself as Uncle Chip – but their ooh-look-at-this cartoonishness repeatedly pulls the viewer out of the story. The disjointed storytelling and pointless cannon fodder of characters ultimately makes The Monkey into more of a feel-bad showcase of elaborate kills than a coherent film.
REEL FACTS
• England native Theo James is best known for Season 2nd of The White Lotus and the Divergent trilogy.
• Tatiana Maslany is the first Canadian actress to win an Emmy in a major acting category – in 2016, for Best Actress in a Drama Series for Orphan Black.
• The decision to have the monkey bang a drum instead of cymbals was due to The Walt Disney Company owning the film rights to the cymbal monkey, which appeared in Toy Story 3.
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