When twin brothers find a mysterious wind-up monkey, a series of outrageous deaths tear their family apart. Twenty-five years later, the monkey begins a new killing spree forcing the estranged brothers to confront the cursed toy.
Trailer
Reviews
Manuel São Bento
4
By Manuel São Bento
FULL SPOILER-FREE REVIEW @ https://movieswetextedabout.com/the-monkey-review-a-chaotic-blend-of-tones-and-genres-that-misses-the-mark/
"The Monkey teeters between ingenuity and frustration. Osgood Perkins crafts moments of inspiration and gets the best out of a solid cast, but the lack of a cohesive identity prevents its erratic blend of tones and genres from reaching its true potential.
For some, this chaotic, blood-soaked mix of horror, satire, family drama, and comedy will feel refreshing and daring; for others, it will be simply exasperating and disorienting.
Personally, it didn't work... at all."
Rating: C-
CinemaSerf
6
By CinemaSerf
This takes for ever to get going and once it does, it’s really an unoriginal semi-comedic horror drama centred around yet another not-so-menacing puppet. This time, it’s squabbling brothers “Hal” and “Bill” who discover an old hat box after their father dies and in it is what looks like a toy monkey. They wind it up and next thing, their babysitter is no more and that’s the just the start of it’s malevolence. Putting two and two together, they decide it’s best to drop the thing down a well and get on with growing up. Scoot on years later and now “Hal” (Theo James) has a son of his own “Petey” (Colin O’Brien) and is trying to rebuild some bridges with him after his marriage collapsed. Equally estranged is his twin, so he’s not impressed when, out of the blue, he is called and told their aunt has died. He now has to drag the reluctant lad along to the home they grew up in and guess what is in the wardrobe? At times it’s quite funny, but I’m not sure how intentional that is as James delivers a seriously flat performance and the epitome of sibling rivalries involves a frankly risible degree of menace. It’s not that the idea is rubbish, though it is derivative, it’s that the acting and writing are poor and the scenarios - familial discord, new stepdad (Elijah Wood) etc. are all just too predictable and it provides virtually nothing new over a lacklustre one hundred minutes. I could certainly think of a few good uses for the chimp, though!
