February 28th, 2025

‘Longlegs’ often felt unbalanced to me, particularly towards the end. It often seemed like he couldn’t tell how hard he wanted us to laugh at Cage’s performance, and simultaneously be terrified by it. With ‘The Monkey’ it feels like he has largely dropped the terror of it all, cashing it in for the absurdity, and the unfairness, of death in general. After twin boys experience of series of freak accidents brought about by a toy monkey they try to run from their past, only for it to rear it’s horrifying head and clap it’s dissonant cymbals again.

It often feels like King, and Osgood are wrestling with their haunted pasts. Both have experience trauam for sure. King has been open for a long time about his father’s substance abuse, and Perkins lost his father and mother terribly young. After experiences like that a defense mechanism that many people take is humor. And ‘The Monkey’ is rife with the joke of expiring. Whether it’s the boys baby sitter getting her head cut off at Benihana’s, or their Aunt getting lighting her head on fire until she runs out the door and impales her face on a real estate sign, the ‘Final Destination’ nature of how The Monkey enacts it’s will is steeped in black comedy.

Outside of that is the fear that drives people to avoid death, and the hurt that puts on the world at large. One of the characters figures out that the person who turns the key on the toy monkey is never the one to die. He turns it, and turns it, and turns it, trying to avoid death while dispatching his foes. The destruction caused by this is unimaginable, between planes falling out of the sky, wasp nests exploding at random, his wrath is even worse than that of The Monkeys, and it makes the world a darker place.

The film takes place over two time periods, in the past our lead characters are twins played by one actor, Christian Convery. The best performance of the film is their mother, a small rolle portrayed by Tatianna Maslany who absolutely threads the needle of the heartfelt hurt of death, and the twisted comedy of the piece. After the boys grow up they are played by Theo James, who feels more at home portraying the more aggressive, meaner twin brother. It’s hard to imagine Theo James as a put upon nerd. Hollywood can’t just keep making every freakazoid a total beefcake. James does an admirable job at both roles to be fair, I suppose it’s not his fault he’s insanely hot, but c’mon.

It is based on a short story, so the 98 minute run time does feel stretched at times, even at that length. But the film is both poetic and hilarious. Perkins is masterful at the punchline and his style fits so nicely into something like this it’s hard to understand why he tried to do ‘Longlegs’ to begin with. I hope to have more of Perkins working on preexisting works, he expertly told this King story and kept the spirit of the legendary author alive throughout. We can only hope that Perkins sticks to this style in the future, but I suppose “it is what it is” so sayeth the Lord.

4/5