By: Amanda Musto
Another Stephen King adaptation has been made and thankfully this one did not disappoint. The Monkey is the newest hit dropped on the big screen this month and has proved that the horror comedy genre has come back strong.
With the movie being based off a short story by horror master, Stephen King, and being directed by Osgood Perkins, son of horror icon Anthony Perkins (Norman Bates in Psycho), one would think this film would have an old-school horror vibe. However, that was not the case, with it having a modern vibe along with a lot of humor unlike what older horror films usually had.
The film was a hit though and I do rate it 4/5 stars, but I wish it had a little bit more of a vintage horror vibe. The gore factor was high, a timeless aspect of a good horror film, but some deaths were highly unrealistic which is what brought the rating down to four. Getting shot at close range with a shotgun will blow a hole in you, but it won’t blow you to bits. Jumping into a pool hit with an electric current will electrocute you, but you aren’t going to explode. The deaths were bloody, very interesting and some were original, but some were so far fetched that it just wasn’t good.
Theo James (Divergent series) did phenomenal as both normal twin Hal and revenge seeking twin Bill. He was able to convey an array of emotions throughout the whole film, even given the not great dialogue in most of the film. I also applaud his wonderful accent, it made me forget he is actually British and not American.
The movie was fun and creative, had a lot of supernatural aspects and gave a few laughs. The storyline itself in some parts lacked and focused more on the humor aspect rather than the horror, which was disappointing in a film like this. When I think of Stephen King stories, I don’t expect a lot of laughs so I wish it focused on being more scary than funny.
When it came to the time jump, I wish it had a little more clarification on when the switch happened. I ended up confused on the timeline because it switched so quickly I didn’t notice that it was now in the present tense vs how the story was all originally in the past. Otherwise I did like that the first half of the movie was all in the past to give the back story. The first half was actually better because it focused more on the monkey and what it could do.
All in all the movie was enjoyable and thankfully wasn’t a flop like some other Stephen King adaptations have been, but it also wasn’t the best of them. I’d recommend it to a King fan or a horror comedy lover, but it’s also a one time watch kind of film.
