Osgood Perkins, or “Oz,” as he goes by,  is a director I’ve come to know quite a bit in recent months. His first film, The Blackcoat’s Daughter, was good, but  it was his last movie with an amazing marketing campaign, Longlegs, which  was incredible and completely blew my mind. He did a great job on that film. He had a lot to live up to with The Monkey.  If the buzz behind it was to be believed, it was another solid follow-up for him. In my humble opinion, I think it’s step down u fortunately.  It just didn’t live up to my expectations. 

The film is split into two segments. The first focuses on two twin brothers, Hal and Bill,  both played by Christian Convery.  They find an old toy money in the attic of their father’s home. When strange and gruesome things start to happen to their family members, they decide to throw “The Monkey” down a well on the property.  

The film fast forwards 25 years later, where Hal is a struggling father getting ready to pick up his son Petey (Colin O’Brien) up from his ex-wife for his one weekend together with him. When he gets a call from the real estate agent saying the house he grew up in as a kid was on sale, this was a surprise to him. His aunt, who lived in the house in later years, died under suspicious circumstances. Come to find out “The Monkey” was found, sold, and re-bought at an estate sale. This causes a lot of chaos in the town, which makes adult Hal (Theo James) go back to see what’s going on.

Perkins, the son of legendary actor Anthony Hopkins, is known for his creative kills in his films.  This concept allows for those types of bloody violent death scenes. The creativity in these scenes was absolutely out of this world. I’ve seen a lot of horror films in my day, and some horror directors are very creative with their kills.  The kills in this movie are very creative.  They have timed sequences and sometimes come out of nowhere. You don’t always see them coming. One thing I can say is that the kills are quite gruesome and very bloody.

Theo James has had an interesting career up until now he’s been in a juggernaut television show that was highly acclaimed, The White Lotus. On HBO/Max, but his work in the Divergent franchise is what really put him on the map. I personally loved him in last year’s The Gentleman quite a bit, though. He has branched out and done a lot of different things, including animation as well. “The Monkey” is one of if not the craziest things he’s done in his career. He’s in a serious horror film, but for some reason, people were laughing a lot at the goings on in the movie. I didn’t find this film that funny. Maybe he knew it was an example of winking at the camera. He had to play it as a dark comedy instead of a straightforward horror film. I think the ladder is more in line with my thoughts on the movie. James did what he was told, so who am I to give him and Perkins crap on that.

I think there is a fine line between dark comedy and horror film, but Perkins and James are balancing that line like they are standing on the side of a building about to fall off. Perkins himself plays a character who you just can’t take seriously. He’s trying to be funny. The rest of the supporting cast from Tatiana Maslany (Stronger) to Rohan Campbell (Halloween Ends) and Elijah Wood (The Lord of the Rings Trilogy) are all acting in a comedic fashion. They are playing their roles straight like James is. Maybe that’s the direction from Perkins. Who knows? I just didn’t find this movie funny at all. That’s not a good thing.

The Monkey is an interesting concept to me. The trailer had me convinced this was going to be a crazy wacky batshit horror film. That was until I saw the movie and I was shocked I didn’t like it. The reasons I didn’t like it, it’s not funny to me, are the same reasons others do like the film. Perkins was going in a different direction with this movie than with his other films, that’s for sure. James plays it straight, and I enjoyed his performance for the most part. The many violent and bloody kills are shot very well and were surprising sometimes. Even though this movie wasn’t always for me I respect the try by Perkins and company.

2 stars

Dan Skip Allen