By Matthew Moorcroft

Solid Recommendation

• Directed by Osgood Perkins
• Starring Theo James, Tatiana Maslany, Rohan Campbell, Colin O’Brien
• R

There are two kinds of horror films. This statement is hyperbole, obviously, but for the sake of the argument, there are two; your Rube Goldberg machines and your simple calculators. The latter are ones that focus in on a singular idea through either complicated means or slow builds that are easy enough to understand on paper. These are the kinds of horror you tend to find in your psychologically minded ones, with more emphasis placed on the slow, winding build of tension that releases at a sudden moment rather then a consistent string of shock factor. Osgood Perkins, as sometimes divisive as he’s becoming, has mostly made a name for himself in this camp of features to great effect, particularly in last year’s Longlegs which used Satanic imagery and cop procedural to lean into it’s twisted, racid vibes of dread.

The Monkey is Perkins’ entry into the former camp, even if there are shades of that dread still intact. But now adding a gleeful, cynical darkness to it’s direction, The Monkey is far more similar to the Rube Goldberg machines of horror that defines the slasher genre or it’s more direct inspirations of the Final Destination features. So much death, and yet all of it is seemingly designed to be either as batshit insane or completely lubricous in the best way possible, and you can tell that Perkins is having a ball trying to find ways to top himself with every continuous new death that happens here. From a hibachi restaurant gone wrong to an electrified pool, if you are looking for gore then you will certainly get it in spades.

But there is, ultimately, a purpose to The Monkey‘s chaos, both in-universe and out of it, and that purpose is a loving tribute to death. It’s clear that within the joyful nature of it’s pitch black comedy and impossible murders that there is real, tangible pain; a director using humor as more of a coping mechanism to try and make sense of something seemingly random and difficult to understand. Perkins’ own history – that of a man whose parents died in very bizarre ways themselves – is crucial to understanding the feature, and even without that knowledge you can tell he’s, quote unquote, “going through it”.

The story he does decide to tell is fine enough. This is ultimately where the movie does falter a bit, as while it has a solid enough lead (who has to do double duty in also playing the main antagonist of the feature) the film’s cast of wacky characters are mostly there to service jokes or weird tangents to populate an otherwise strange world. Still, hard to beat a predictably stellar Tatiana Maslany – fresh off her underappreciated work on She-Hulk – trying to comfort her twin sons by saying “everybody dies, and you’ll die, and your pets will die”. Or even better, an Elijah Wood stealing the show in a single scene as the new husband and parent who writes self help books about being a new husband and parent.

But there is also the sense that, as much of a Rube Goldberg machine it actually is, especially in it’s climax, it’s clear that Perkins’ true love in horror has always been trying to make the audience as uncomfortable as possible. And this certainly has that, whether it be through it’s intentionally cringey humor or it’s deaths, but also it’s palpable sense of something just being wrong. I mentioned before that the people in here are wacky and weird, and I’m not lying; nobody really acts like a normal person in this but that’s seemingly by design. Characters are strange and… off, and combine that with close ups of maybe the scariest looking toy monkey you’ve ever seen that does work effectively, even if said monkey actually is mostly an afterthought in his own flick.

So I guess, if anything, it’s possible a movie about and called The Monkey maybe deserved more monkey actually in it, but as it stands I think that’s fine. The Monkey is still a fascinating picture when all is said and done, with exceptional cinematography as per usual for a Perkins flick and some really gnarly, fun kills that will make those with a sick sense of humor crack up in the theater. After all, we all die someday, and that’s ok – might as well find the laughter in it.