Writer-director Osgood Perkins made one of the 21st century’s best horror films last year, and now he’s made another. But even if Longlegs’ intensely creepy atmosphere was too much, don’t be tempted to dodge The Monkey. This little guy has a whole new set of tricks to amuse and astound.
Theo James (The White Lotus) stars in the dual role of Hal and Bill Shelburn, twin brothers whose traumatic family inheritance comes – and keeps coming – in the form of a wind-up, drum-banging monkey that once belonged to their absentee father. The malevolent toy is a familiar horror trope, specifically derived in this instance from a 1980 short story by Stephen King, then lovingly embellished with eccentric comic details. There’s a too-long fringe, an absurdly oversized water bottle and a 50s rock’n’roll soundtrack, though none of these at all ease the terrific tension that – literally and audibly – ratchets up every time the Monkey’s key is turned. You know someone’s gruesome demise is imminent, but you’ll never guess who or how.
Such intricate genre mechanisms are fundamental to The Monkey’s construction, but the film also has a heart that beats with authentic human emotion. (“Like life,” as the toy box has it.) The director has his own tricky, tragic family history: his father, Psycho actor Anthony Perkins, died of Aids-related pneumonia in 1992; his mother, Berry Berenson, was a passenger on a hijacked 9/11 flight. Perhaps this provoked him to grapple with a matter both profound and highly practical: how are we supposed to keep living when death is indiscriminate, inevitable and all around? Well, here is one intriguing suggestion.
In UK and Irish cinemas
