The Monkey is the latest film from Longlegs director, Osgood Perkins, and is adapted from the Stephen King story (featured in his short story collection: Skeleton Crew) of the same name.

The Monkey opens in 1999: the year that witnessed the rise of Britney Spears, the explosion of Nu Metal, and the fashion trend where we all wore clothing emblazoned with flames. Petey Shelburn (hilariously played by the forever-frantic Adam Scott) anxiously tries to return an item to a pawn shop in the dead of night. The item in question is a vintage, wind-up ‘Naughty Cymbal Monkey’ toy.

Petey pleads with the shop owner to take the infernal thing off his blood-soaked hands, however, the toy’s mechanisms begin to grind and wind of its own accord, and a sequence of small motions within the shop’s display items triggers a harpoon to eject; impaling the shop owner before retracting, and pulling out the unfortunate soul’s innards along with it, in a grotesque ribbon-like display.

This opening sequence perfectly sets up the tone of the movie: this is FINAL DESTINATION dialed up to WTAF with a hefty dose of midnight-black humour and some gorgeous visual poetry to pore over for good measure.

The Monkey centers around identical twin brothers Petey and Hal, the sons of Petey Shelburn, as they navigate life with an absent father.

Hal is the runt of the litter, the younger sibling by mere minutes, who is woefully submissive to Petey. However, when the twins find a mysterious box after rummaging through their father’s closet, it is Hal who takes on a morbid responsibility for what lies inside: the wind-up monkey that their father had tried so desperately to rid himself of.

Its manic, red-lined eyes bulge, and its teeth are bared in a rictus grimace, while its hand of fate precariously holds its little drumstick above its drum. Once The Monkey’s drumstick hits that drum, an unforeseen, violent death will befall someone in the town or near it.

I learned an interesting piece of lore about the Monkey’s design in the movie. Perkins had chosen the iconic ‘Naughty Cymbal Monkey’ for the movie, which instead held cymbals in his hand and donned a yellow vest.

However, when one of the production team pointed out that the now-infamous design had already been used in Toy Story 3, the decision was made to alter the aesthetics slightly, which proved to be Kismet for the movie.

The motion of the Monkey slowlyyyy lowering its drumstick upon the drum lends the movie a tense, ticking-clock element as the audience waits in brutal anticipation for the next horrifying death.

I would like to take a moment to address the grief-stricken life of the director, Osgood Perkins, whose parents both died tragically in real life. His father died of AIDS-related complications when Osgood was only eighteen years old, and almost exactly nine years later, Osgood lost his mother in the September 11th tragedy.

The Monkey not only depicts the grief of being orphaned but also succeeds in presenting death through the prism of (extremely dark) humour, framing onscreen deaths as bombastic, often artistic, displays for the audience to cheer over.

Osgood is a master of visual poetry in the same vein as Hitchcock or Kubrick: he makes a spectacle of death and presents its depictions in increasingly embellished and elaborate ways.

I couldn’t help but think of this quote from Nahum 3:6: “I will cast abominable filth upon you, make you vile, and make you a spectacle.” The meaning of this verse is the prediction of God’s punishment for a city and its people.

This quote cleverly sets up the tale of The Monkey; it aims to make a spectacle of death, and almost every character appears to relish in witnessing wanton destruction and violence with a detached sense of whimsy.

The ‘punishment’ of God’s wrath stems from misuse of the Monkey. The young brothers begin messing around with the thing in the hopes that it will kill an intended target, and this implicates an entire town of innocent bystanders in the toy’s nefarious web.

There is a hilarious, repetitive visual gag of a squad of cheerleaders. These exuberant girls always appear at the scene of deaths caused by the Monkey, celebrating in the spectacle while enthusiastically cheering for more.

The cheerleaders are US.

From our lurid fascination with true crime and serial killers to how we nonchalantly witness atrocities via the news as we eat our breakfast Cheerios, Western societal morals appear to have regressed to a Medieval standard. We openly relish in tragedy and cheer on infamous murderers amidst scenes of heinous carnage.

After all, the message printed on the box reads ‘’like life’’— alluding to the notion that, like life, death simply… happens, and it is as intrinsic to the experience of life as pleasure or contentment.

Much of the film’s narrative lies within its visual storytelling or via subtle hints dropped by characters during conversation.

Hal repeatedly refers to the Monkey as ‘’The Devil’’ and there are also visuals related to The Four Horsemen (Of The Apocalypse), namely The Pale Horse AKA Death: “I looked, and behold, an ashen horse; and he who sat on it had the name Death; and Hades was following with him.”

When Death appears to Hal, he looks haggard and burdened by his own terrible purpose.

If one were to piece together these clues, one would realise that Oz Perkins does not coddle his audience but peppers his frames with just enough Easter eggs to allow his viewers to reach their own conclusions.

I believe that the Monkey represents Hal’s (or the new owner’s) grief and fear: The Monkey feeds off a soul who is stricken with grief and guilt, and it appears to attach itself to this person, passing along the curse to its conclusion before another victim finds it.

There are a couple of notable cameos from other Horror filmmakers, and there is plenty of Tarantino-esque dialogue to maintain the light-hearted vibe despite the gratuitous gore.

The Monkey borrows the visual storytelling of Longlegs and adds the Shared Universe/ Kingverse lore, which subtly ties the story to other characters and stories from Stephen King’s many written works.

The utterly Oddball characters, including a profanity-riddled ‘Rookie Priest’, and a hilarious cameo from Oz himself as a Swinger really feel like they’re torn from the pages of a Stephen King novel.

The Monkey nails the vibe of a King novel.

There are enough Easter Eggs onscreen to feed an entire busload of cheerleaders, and the set pieces marry the elaborate traps from the Saw movies, alongside the anxiety of anticipating Death and where he will approach from, similar to how Death approaches in Final Destination.

At times shocking, hilarious, and even heartfelt with a hefty dose of empathy for the Broken among us, The Monkey appeals to a wide audience while never hitting us over the head with exposition dumps.

Sidenote: This is a movie that needs to be seen in theatres to be fully appreciated. Try to catch it on the big screen if you can; you won’t regret it.

Overall Rating (Out of 5 Butterflies): 4