The Drums That Signal the End

Horror movies come in all varieties, from short films that end on cliffhangers to longer movies whose scary plots are accompanied by several other frights. “The Monkey” is neither.

“The Monkey” hit theaters around the world on February 21. The film has a rather short runtime of 98 minutes, but uses every minute to great effect. “The Monkey” is based on the Stephen King short story and follows Theo James’ Hal as he recalls his childhood experiences with a windup monkey toy that kills a person with every clap of its cymbals.

In the short story, Hal recalls how he and his brother attempted to get rid of the monkey once and for all by throwing it into a lake, only to discover years later that the monkey still haunted them.

The film takes a different approach with the story. It still begins with Hal and Petey as children who are victims of the monkey, but this time when trying to get rid of it they already know it will eventually come back to haunt them. They separate after reaching adulthood hoping  they can limit the damage the monkey does by forcing it to haunt only one person. From that point on, the movie builds upon the ending of the original story, and transforms it from a thriller into a hilarious, albeit bloody, satirical horror story.

I’ll be frank; this movie is not scary in the slightest. There are three characters whose unexpected deaths are meant to have an impact on the audience. If you go into this movie expecting to be terrified by all the gruesome ways a person might die, you will be severely disappointed.

The film’s director, Osgood Perkins, could not take seriously the concept of a children’s toy that caused people to die in absurd ways. He decided to turn the project into a satirical piece focused on the futility of trying to avoid death. “The Monkey” gives up any and all pretense of being scary in the first few minutes, and from that point devolves into the story of a tired, middle-aged man trying to save his childhood home town from the weapon of mass destruction that is the monkey.

The first few kills in the film are somewhat impactful, if only for their surprise , but by the fourth it is clear that they are meant to be funny. By the end of the movie, each death is so insane on its own that it makes the beginning of the film look tame in comparison.

Overall, I found “The Monkey” to be a very interesting and entertaining film. It definitely wasn’t the horror film some people will expect, but I honestly found what it turned out to be far more entertaining than any horror movie I’ve seen. It lives and breathes the Rule of Funny; that something does not need to be justified as long as it is entertaining. While some people might find the film’s nonsense annoying, I believe it will be an enjoyable watch for the majority.