The Monkey Blu-ray Review: Has Heart, Humor, and Horror in Equal Measure

Osgood Perkins (filmmaker and son of the legendary Anthony Perkins) has built a stellar reputation as a wizard of horror, a wunderkind of creating imaginative works that take the genre to new heights. With his outrageous and savagely funny satire The Monkey, he has amazingly confronted the themes of death and morality with big, bold, and gory glee.

Twins Bill and Hal (played by Christian Convery as youth, and Theo James as adults) left by their absent military father (Adam Scott in a cameo) and raised by their dance-teacher mother Lois (Tatiana Maslany) find a creepy toy monkey among the possessions their father left behind. After they wind up the key attached, it causes a series of increasingly twisted and gruesome deaths around them (including their loved ones). Their family is torn apart because of this, so they try and get rid of it. However, evil always finds its way back. Twenty-five years later, it unleashes a new killing spree, which forces the estranged brothers to reunite and find a way to destroy the diabolical toy once and for all.

Although the plot is based on the short story by Stephen King, Osgood adds his own insane and unique vision into it, making it morbidly funny and real than it initially suggests. There is definitely a gratuitous amount of gore that is pretty wicked, but it’s not there for show. It’s used to complement the film’s plot of understanding mortality and the sudden ways that it will come for all of us.

Yes, it could be considered an unofficial remake of 2000’s Final Destination, but Osgood adds enough extremely dark comedy and nastiness to help his film stand out from that cult classic (and its sequels). It also has equal amounts of humanity that keep it grounded despite the cartoonish blood and guts. If this is how he continues to elevate his oeuvre, then sign me up! He does his famous father proud by craving his own path to becoming a horror legend.

The Monkey is a blast. It’s one of the most refreshing and unapologetic modern horror movies that is not afraid to get really messy. It has heart, humor, and horror in equal measure. The moral of the story: death has a sense of humor too. Special features include three behind-the-scenes featurettes, a funeral gallery, and teasers/trailers.