Sommerleigh Pollonais, Horror Head Writer
Twin brothers Bill and Hal (both played by Theo James of The Gentlemen, The White Lotus) are digging through their father’s things and discover an insanely creepy toy monkey that plays the drums. It has a windup key in its back that when turned seems to cause Final Destination levels of death and destruction. They try getting rid of it by throwing it away, but 25 years later it pops up again and once more people start dying in over-the-top ways.
As Stephen King adaptations go The Monkey (based on the short story “Skeleton Crew”) is one of the better ones. Osgood Perkins said he found the initial script by Atomic Monster to be too serious in tone and considering these elaborate deaths are being caused by a toy monkey, he wanted to add a lot of dark humour to the tale. Perkins is also no stranger to tragedy, having lost both his father and his mother at a young age. Longlegs was his way of tackling his father’s memory and passing. And it’s obvious that this one is all about his mother, with Tatiana Maslany (She-Hulk, Orphan Black) as a stand-in for her, you could tell her had a lot of love for his mom and carried a lot of pain from her passing.
Much darker than most horror comedies I’ve seen, yet the two genres blend really well with the laughter that seeing these deaths play out can evoke. I mean how can you not chuckle at a woman with her head on fire running into a wooden stake, or a dude exploding as he dives into a pool. It seems like his point is death is so random at times, what else can you do but laugh, less you let the pain overtake and destroy you.
Inventive death scenes aside, there isn’t much else here to write about. Maybe that has to do with the source material being a short story which doesn’t offer up much to explore. Theo James is excellent in his dual roles and Maslany is charismatic in hers, however brief it may be. Unlike The Blackcoat’s Daughter or Longlegs though I don’t’ see any reason to watch this one more than once. The death scenes are imaginative but by midway through they start losing their impact. Out on VOD this week, I recommend waiting and watching this at home. It’s good but it isn’t Longlegs good.
Sommer’s Score: 6.5 out of 10
And you can check out more King adaptations below:
Sommerleigh of the House Pollonais. First of Her Name. Sushi Lover, Queen of Horror Movies, Comic Books and Binge-Watching Netflix. Mother of two beautiful black cats named Vader and Kylo. I think eating Popcorn at the movies should be mandatory, PS4 makes the best games ever, and I’ll be talking about movies until the zombie apocalypse comes. Double Tap Baby! Read More