"I'll die; you'll die. All your friends will die, and their families, and their pets. Let's go dancing." Lois (Tatiana Maslany)
Although the film adaptation of Stephen King’s 1980 short story, The Monkey, has plenty of gorrible, clever kills, it is equally a comedy about family and death. Unlike most horror films, it also takes seriously family dysfunction and the universal horror of certain death.
Twin brothers Hal and Bill (younger played by Theo James, older by Christian Convery) have their father’s (Adam Scott) toy monkey that in typical King fashion doles out death randomly after banging his drum. Even though lost for decades in their attic, once recovered, it forces the estranged brothers to reunite to vanquish it. Not so easily done.
The sibling rivalry is a dominant motif as Bill bullies Hal by calling him “dumb**it.” Add accusations about Mom’s death, and you have full-blown family battle.
Even if they throw Monkey in a well, it manages like a locust to re-emerge. The upside of this menace is to force Hal especially to stay away from his son to protect him and to be chastened by the inevitability of death.
Not to dismiss either the need to visit his son as he does each year, but now making a deeper connection. Meanwhile, the inventive deaths pile up, e.g., someone diving into an electrically-charged pool or being trampled by wild horses. Not surprisingly, James Wan, the brain behind the SAW franchise with its creative ways to mutilate humans, produces this hilarious horror fest.
What sets The Monkey apart from the usual gore fare is the emphasis on family and the obsession about death. Both topics are eternal and complicated and well represented