The Monkey (2025) * *

 

Directed by:  Osgood Perkins

Starring:  Theo James, Chris Convery, Tatiana Maslany, Elijah Wood, Adam Scott, Colin O'Brien

When the toy monkey depicted in the above photo begins banging its drum, someone will die.  We don't know who will die or how, but only that it's a certainty.  Those who realize this try to command the monkey to kill their enemies, but we learn "the monkey doesn't take requests".  The only question is how gruesomely the person will die.  The Monkey is full of blood, decapitations, "accidents", mangled body parts, and other assorted killings.   The movie keeps upping the ante.  It is more interested in the kills than suspense.

Osgood Perkins' directed last year's Longlegs, which was atmospheric but not successful in its attempts to depict a serial killer played by Nicolas Cage.  I'd reread my review but that's a lot of work.  The Monkey, based on a Stephen King short story, is more campy and humorous than Longlegs, but by comparison almost anything is.  In The Monkey, twins Hal and Bill (played by Convery as a kid and Theo James as an adult) come in contact with the toy monkey which soon begins its killing spree.  Their father Pete (Scott) tried to sell it in a pawn shop years earlier which resulted in the shop owner's death.  The toy just keeps finding this family.  The more they try to get rid of it, the more it finds its way back. 

Bill bullies Hal as both a kid and an adult.  Hal takes it to a point, and then instructs the monkey to kill Bill, but their mother has her throat slit instead, which may be the most tame of the murders.  Or maybe it's the pawn shop owner in the prologue who is merely speared to death.  The Monkey, like Longlegs, has an odd, unique atmosphere to it which makes the material palatable to a point, but overall we are left with a series of bloody, gory murders and a cute little evil monkey toy that one would rather not see operate.