The Monkey
NEON
Osgood Perkins returns in the director’s chair rather quickly after the infamously critical and commercial success of his film Longlegs with The Monkey, a far more comedic endeavour that finds two twin brothers tormented by a mysterious wind-up monkey with deadly and horrifying consequences. To get it out of the way first, The Monkey and Longlegs are complete tonal dissonances to one another, and thankfully so. An audience who adored what Longlegs provides are not necessarily going to be able to vibe with what The Monkey showcases, and while the two do share similarities, The Monkey is far more akin to something like pulp Horror in the vein of Final Destination or Terrifier. Not necessarily described as a palette cleanser, but Perkins’ film is undoubtedly a feature that tonally opposes the director’s previous venture, a move that feels both welcoming and refreshing in what is slowly but surely becoming a rich tapestry of a Horror filmmaker.
The first “hurdle” or identifier with The Monkey is its tone. Granted, as aforementioned, this is not the same beast as Longlegs, but does intertwine serious emotive moments of brevity meeting comedic tone. This is a sentiment that is found throughout the feature, often with hilarious albeit jarring results. It’s a recurring theme of humour used to highlight and hide dark and uncomfortable moments of vulnerability. A coping mechanism that Perkins himself is known for using, thus understanding his relationship with death and loss, which the feature tackles with rather poignant albeit loud and brash. It is a staple with this film that will be the biggest hindrance for an audience deciphering and gravitating towards the material, which results will be sink or swim. Think of it along the lines of a more poignant and emotionally engaged Final Destination in which the audience is tasked with unravelling emotional torment all the while seeing terror and destruction take place in the form of a toy monkey. It’s undeniably a tricky task to overcome but once that mountain peak has been breached, the experience opens up to a fabulous rich and gruesome spectacle.
The tone here is a clearly defined and unique experience, and Perkins puts a great emphasis on the shoulders of his characters – and therefore his performers – to galvanise this type of material. Three performers who fall into this category are Theo James, Tatiana Maslany and Christian Convery. Starting with Maslany, who this feature narratively and thematically pivots towards in an integral need of both a warm and emotive core. Maslany is terrific here: charismatic, charming and, most importantly, emotively astute in sequences in which the tone demands it. She delivers a terrific level of poignancy meeting comedy, which this feature reiterates with Maslany in key sequences that, if not crafted to the degree in which they are, would begin to sink this ship in lack of poignancy and brutality of the world that surrounds these two brothers, and her performance enriches the experience tenfold.
What Maslany curates here has enormous significance in the duo roles provided by Theo James and Christian Convery. The latter is so good and exceptional in his dual role that it genuinely comes across that two performers are at work here. The roles in question are two opposing forces of emotion, ego and sentiment of two young boys dealing with day-to-day life, and then meeting tragedy with the resulting spirals performed by Theo James at an adult stage and the resulting chaos. Convery, however, has the far more difficult circumstance of setting up and laying the breadcrumbs and depth for the audience to engage with and develop for the rest of the feature regarding the character arcs. Convery shows great promise and conviction not in just one performance but the two. Not necessarily in differentiating the two in physicality or thematic, but managing to showcase the two are similar (they are twins, after all) and yet totally different while not breaking the foundation and facade of the film experience. So much so in fact – and thanks to Carson Timar for pointing this out on ClapperCast – is that Convery makes a great claim and point that The Monkey should perhaps have been set completely in the narrative time frame of when these two characters are boys. Andy Muschietti’s It solidified that children holding down Horror can be both critically and commercially successful. Still, furthermore the narrative and thematics of The Monkey work far better in the context of dealing with grief, growing and evolving with the understanding death far better in the stages of when it happens contextually to these two characters as boys than it does as adults. Now this is not a disservice to James, who equally showcases terrific range and ability with charm and emotive depth but the narrative arc changes to a perspective that while works on paper and rhymes with a certain thematic poignancy of becoming the absentee father doesn’t quite gel nor bond with the chaotic fun that came before it. More so when the viewer finally meets James’ second role, it fails to give a great amount of service nor build up with far too quick and rushed context. Granted, this is the film of two boys growing apart with significant loss and finding tragedy hauntingly bringing them back together, which still works to an effective degree and is undeniably more effective in the perspective of dealing with grief head on and the impact it has with the naivety of keeping it away. However, this is not a feature that comes together perhaps as nicely and delicately as it would want and needs to be to hit certain emotional targets from a filmmaker who doesn’t quite get a grasp on forming and polishing these specific types of dynamics.
Which brings this review quite nicely onto Perkins himself. Now, the tone of The Monkey is akin to the personality and character of its creative force no doubt. The morbid comedic output with emotional devastation wrapped up in an unflinching reality of truth, all the while procured in a silly and farcical tale of violence is unquestionably that of Perkins. Tone aside, with five features deep and a sixth on its way, what of Perkins’ aesthetic and style? For one, its not facetious to suggest that that director is somewhat uninterested in the visual medium – albeit Longlegs and Gretel and Hansel play with visual form and The Blackcoats Daughter plays with narrative form – it is still clear that its the horror and atmosphere that Perkins is far more interested and on occasion such an approach helps the visual aesthetic or set-piece in being dynamic. The larger question here is that The Monkey is now the second of three films in just two years, and, while they are incredibly well crafted and executed, it does beg the question: are these productions rushed or in need of one or two more drafts? And the reality to that question here would be arguably yes, only in terms of strengthening the narrative side to proceedings and the horror on offer here. Its cold opening is truly exquisite with laugh out loud moments and jaw dropping to the floor sequences in which Perkins repeatedly outdoes himself. It’s nowhere near the extent in violence of Damien Leone’s Terrifier series but more so in that previously compared vein to Final Destination, where creativity goes hand in hand with gore for both an effective and entertaining feature that once again puts Perkins front and centre of the Horror genre as a master of his craft.
