‘The Monkey’ Leaves a Record Trail of Death and Destruction in Its Wake

February 20, 2025

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Monkey see, monkey do your worst (CREDIT: NEON)

Starring: Theo James, Tatiana Maslany, Christian Convery, Colin O’Brien, Rohan Campbell, Sarah Levy, Oz Perkins, Adam Scott, Elijah Wood

Director: Osgood Perkins

Running Time: 98 Minutes

Rating: R for A Countless Mass of Displaced Limbs and Loose Guts

Release Date: February 21, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Twin brothers Hal and Bill Shelburn (both played by Theo James as adults, and by Christian Convery as teenagers) have been haunted by a simple plaything their entire lives. Whenever this toy monkey drummer flashes its chompers and starts banging away, blood and guts are sure to follow. Once you wind it up and let it do its thing, someone nearby will undergo the most disturbingly gruesome death imaginable. Hal and Bill attempt to wield this power against their enemies, but the monkey does not take requests. They also attempt to get rid of it, but it’s clearly indestructible and inescapable. If you survive your encounter with this demonic entity, you might consider yourself lucky, except that the guilt and paranoia it causes will almost certainly lead to alienation.

What Made an Impression?: Remember to Believe in The Monkey, or It’ll Kill You: I’ve gotta be honest with y’all. While watching The Monkey, I couldn’t help but wonder, “Isn’t this just a redo of that Mystery Science Theater 3000 movie, Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders?” And in fact, it is! But it’s a little convoluted. Merlin’s Shop is a 1996 fantasy horror flick featuring a subplot revolving around a toy monkey that causes death whenever it bangs its cymbals together. That subplot actually consists of recycled footage from another movie, released in 198,4 called The Devil’s Gift, which appears to be an unofficial ripoff of a Stephen King short story published in 1980 called … “The Monkey”! And that short story is, as you may have guessed, the source material for the new Osgood Perkins-directed film of the same name. This genuine adaptation is certainly more professionally constructed than The Devil’s Gift, but I have a bit of a soft spot for that earlier effort. This rendition is just so unrelentingly brutal, which to be fair is kind of the point.
I Can’t Laugh, Because I’m Dying Too Hard: The Monkey is presenting itself as a horror comedy, but my most frequent reaction to the bloody mayhem was “Egads!” rather than “Hahaha-egads!” There are certainly a few dark streaks in my funny bone, but Perkin’s primary m.o. appears to be expanding the depths of Grand Guignol entertainment rather than being particularly clever about it. Sure, occasionally there’s a well-timed amputation that you can’t help but chuckle at just to verify that you’re still alive. But the overall effect is more grotesque and existential than howlingly ridiculous. Similarly, there’s one scene when teenage Hal is covered in banana goo, and that might sound like the silliest big screen image of the year, but instead it’s a symbol of children’s profound capability for cruelty that’s so typical of Stephen King stories.
Life is Death: The haunting lesson that The Monkey eventually grapples with is the acceptance that everyone around us is going to die soon enough anyway. Sure, most demises aren’t quite as dramatic as those of Hal and Bill’s acquaintances, but this simian forces us to wonder: does that even matter? If you’ve lived through trauma, and are pretty sure that even more trauma is on the way, do you fully retreat, or instead find whatever happiness you can after being dealt a historically terrible hand? I wish this conundrum had been addressed more directly (though it does flow throughout as a subtextual undercurrent), but ultimately this movie is more about being paralyzed by terror instead of seeking answers from it.

The Monkey is Recommended If You Like: Final Destination, Sibling rivalries, Uncannily realistic doll teeth

Grade: 3 out of 5 Drumsticks

They Finally Made a Movie Out of the ‘Cocaine Bear’

February 23, 2023

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Cocaine Bear Gonna Cocaine Bear (CREDIT: Universal Studios)

Starring: Keri Russell, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Alden Ehrenreich, Ray Liotta, Christian Convery, Brooklynn Prince, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Margo Martindale, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Aaron Holliday, Kristofer Hivju

Director: Elizabeth Banks

Running Time: 95 Minutes

Rating: R for A Trail of Terrifyingly Bloody Drug-Fueled Destruction

Release Date: February 24, 2022 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: A bear did cocaine. A BEAR did cocaine! A bear did COCAINE! A bear DID cocaine!

A BEAR DID COCAINE!

This is a movie that certainly delivers on the premise of its title. After a botched bit of drug trafficking leaves a duffel bag full of cocaine unsupervised in a Georgia park, a black bear ingests mass quantities of the powder and proceeds to become supernaturally aggressive. A park ranger, some teenage miscreants, a single mom and her young daughter and her daughter’s friend, and a couple of hikers all get caught in the path of the rampage, while the guys who are on the hook for the stash go to extreme lengths to retrieve it. What could possibly go right?!

What Made an Impression?: After watching a film like Cocaine Bear, I find it helpful to paraphrase the classic movie-mocking show Mystery Science Theater 3000 by utilizing the mantra “Just repeat to myself: It’s just a movie, I should really just relax.” Except, in this case, this nightmare is actually based on a true story. Very loosely based on a true story, though, so we can still remain at ease. In the real version, the bear died before it had the chance to do any sort of damage. Still, despite the fantastical exaggeration, the movie has a rather grounded feel to it that serves as a reminder about how we’re all living – for now – at the mercy of nature.

Let me be absolutely clear (if I haven’t been already): this is one of the most graphically violent mainstream American movies I’ve seen in quite some time. Body parts are torn off and tossed aside with ease, while guts are exposed as a feast for cubs. And it’s made all the more distressing by the fact that we get to know pretty much all of the victims before they meet their demises. Sometimes extreme cinema is positively invigorating; other times, it makes me ask: should I be watching this?

While Cocaine Bear made me reckon with mortality more than I was expecting it to, I could at least appreciate the craft and the commitment. The use of CGI in the bear is obvious and occasionally dodgy in close-ups, but in a way that counterintuitively works. It feels like a cartoon has invaded the physical realm in the worst way possible. And then there are the performances, which dial up the Southern-fried quirks in about half the cast, and then you have the more grounded work, particularly by Ray Liotta in one of his final on-screen appearances. Even in a film as outlandish as this one, in which he’s playing a drug trafficker sporting a gloriously coiffed mane that’s wilder than any woodland creature’s, he finds the genuine motivating oomph. Simply put, we’re in good hands with him, as he forges a true connection in a situation where everything could easily go off the rails in every direction. So come for the brute-force premise, and stay for the subtle surprises.

Cocaine Bear is Recommended If You Like: Piranha, Anaconda, Lake Placid, 80s Rock ‘n’ Roll

Grade: 3 out of 5 Duffel Bags