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THE MONKEY, Death Comes For Us All, Laughing All The Way
Contrary to the precepts of organized religion, the universe is a cold, cruel, callous place, indifferent to our ambitions, impervious to our pleas, oblivious to our plans. Add our mortality and consciousness thereof to the universe’s vast unconcern and the result isn’t so much existential dread, a favorite theme of contemporary and past horror filmmakers, but outright existential despair. We’re completely alone, we’ll die eventually, rarely when we choose, and then, with the inevitable passage of time, oblivion awaits us one and all.
For Osgood “Oz” Perkins (Longlegs, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, The Blackcoat’s Daughter) and his standout adaptation of Stephen King’s 1980 short story, The Monkey, the answer lies not in giving into existential despair, but in humor, the darker, the blacker, the better. Per both the tagline and, of course, our real-world experience, “everybody dies,” but what’s important isn’t if (that’s a given), but when, and more importantly, how the “everybody” in The Monkey meets their premature ends, often abrupt, often spontaneously, almost always explosively, if not downright gruesomely.
Only a post-credits head count will give the audience a Final Destination-like tally of every character whose onscreen lives end both abruptly and spectacularly. Until then, Perkins introduces the “monkey” of the title, a (not) simian toy equipped with drums, an old-school turnkey, and a malevolent, nightmarish grin. Brought to the U.S. of A. from parts unknown and possibly unknowable by one Petey Shelburn (Adam Scott in a one-and-down cameo), an anxious, blood-splattered pilot eager to remove himself from the presence of said cursed (not) toy, enters a toy shop. As expected, his triumph over the toy proves both momentary and illusory: The monkey, seemingly burnt to ashes thanks to a handy flamethrower, magically reappears in the Shelburn home, hidden in a closet until it’s discovered by another member of the family.
After the elder Shelburn disappears permanently, the scene shifts to his wife, Lois (Tatiana Maslany), and their 11-year-old twin sons, Hal and Bill (Christian Convery). Diametrically. grossly opposed in temperament, attitude, and appetites, Hal and Bill, the latter the former’s perpetual bully, tolerate each other only because of the biological ties that bind them. Once discovered among their father’s belongings, the monkey wreaks a predictable path of havoc through those closest to Hal and Bill, including, but not limited to their immediate caregivers.
As the hatbox containing the cursed toy guarantees (“like life” and not “life-like”), no one’s safe from the monkey’s seemingly random predations. Anyone can die when the monkey stops drumming, except perhaps, whoever turns the key. The monkey picks its soon-to-be-dead victims from a nearby pool of unwanted, unwitting applicants, usually in the goriest possible manner (e.g., a shotgun to the chest, an electrified pool, an overheating coffee maker, among many others). In short, the more ridiculous, the further away from the real world (so many bodies spontaneously combust), the better for Perkins to indulge a heretofore unknown, deeply discomfiting sense of dark, even black humor.
Leaving the obligatory world- and character-building behind, The Monkey jumps ahead in time again, this time by a quarter century. Older, but not exactly wiser, Hal (Theo James, The White Lotus, the Divergent series), weighed down by grief, loss, and guilt, barely ekes out a living as a convenience store worker. A moment or glimmer of happiness led to marriage, fatherhood, and unsurprisingly, divorce. Now an understandably surly, sullen teen, Petey (Colin O’Brien), wants little to do with his deadbeat, loser father, but an impending loss of parental rights (Hal’s) to a self-described “fatherhood” expert, Tim Hammerman (Elijah Wood), and Hal’s oddly compliant ex-wife (Laura Mennell), leads to forced father-son time.
And that’s when the equivalent of hell breaks loose again in Hal and Bill’s (James again) sleepy hometown of Casco, Maine. The unexpectedly expected, premature expiration of another biological relative leads Hal and Petey back to another funeral, an estate sale, and the almost immediate realization that the cursed monkey has somehow reappeared and someone with a hidden agenda (or possibly no agenda at all) continues to turn the key, leading to an escalating body count, usually via overly convoluted, elaborate “accidents,” in a noticeably small, already underpopulated town.
Elevated by Convery and James in dual roles as Hal and Bill at different ages, plus a uniformly strong supporting cast delivering note-performances (each one, in turn, understood the assignment), The Monkey marks a significant departure for Perkins, a filmmaker lauded for his mastery of tone, atmosphere, and pacing and not the macabre, absurdist sense of humor, splatter-filled set pieces, or shock-scares he nimbly displays here. Add to that a newfound mix of urgency, momentum, and energy, and the result, while likely to displease a small subset of Perkins’s most fervent, vocal fans, will most certainly engage, exhilarate, and delight everyone else.
The Monkey opens theatrically on Friday, February 21st, via Neon.
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THE MONKEY Drums Up Carnage that leaves you Cackling
Osgood Perkins delivers a bloody hilarious adaptation of Stephen King’s short story
“Everybody dies”. It’s a tagline, a promise, and a fact of life. The inevitability of this, as well as the uncertainty of how we go, forms the basis of the horror, comedy, and emotional undercurrents of the latest film from Osgood Perkins (Longlegs, The Blackcoat’s Daughter). A rip-roaring adaptation of a Stephen King short story that likely the bloodiest and funniest horror film you’ll see this year.
Centered around twin brothers Hal and Bill who as kids (played by Christian Convery) try to better understand their long absent father (Adam Scott) by looking through his possessions and souvenirs, all accumulated from his trips as an airline pilot. One fateful day they open a box adorned with the words “like life” and inside find a clockwork monkey. An ominous element that seems to insert itself into their lives. After a a tragic loss, the pair come to the realization that winding up the monkey sets in motion a cursed series of events and an inevitable gruesome death. Dumping the toy into the dark void of a deep well, the film picks up 25 years later. A generational shift that allows the exploration of generational trauma. Bill (Theo James) has gone off the grid, while Hal (also Theo James, delivering two nuanced performances) is also closed off from his surrounds, most notably his son Petey (Colin O’Brien), who he keeps at arms length, forever worried about his safety should that damn monkey resurface. The fears well founded as a spate of violent deaths in their hometown force Hal out of his isolation, and with Petey in tow, he heads home to track down and destroy this cursed curio.
The Monkey immediately brings to mind the Final Destination series and their string of sequences as the Grim Reaper recaptures those evaded souls through a series of unfortunate (and often grisly) events. Each scene in the film is a veritable riff on a Chekov’s gun (or specifically a shotgun). You’ll skim he room, look across the items and setup to see what might be the next thing to take someone out. Some are obvious, others less so, but these kills are creative and the blood is bountiful. Be it by decapitation, explosion, harpoon, or surfboard, the surprise and comedic timing of these kills are pitch perfect. The absurdist streak that the film builds runs through the dialogue and supporting chatavcers too, amounting to a cartoonish temperment that is the perfect counter to some of the more morbid themes the film digs into.
Last yeah Perkins flexed with the chilling lore of Longlegs, a potent thriller that crept under the skin and chilled the soul. The Monkey is the antithesis of that, a raucous good time fueled by slapstick level carnage. But it’s no less calculated, deftly ruminating on the inevitability of death, and making peace with that, as well as themes of family and generational trauma, specifically the fallout of having an absentee father. Despite the efforts of their mother Lois (a marvelous turn from Tatiana Maslany), Bill and Hal blighted by the lack of this presence, and feelings of abandonment. An acrimonious relationship further soured by time and trauma, with Bill festering an obsession over his childhood losses, and Hal responding by repeating the sins of his father. Abandoning his own son to protect him, but in doing so harming him. A journey though blood and pain unfolds to show that acceptance and moving forward is better than being stuck in the past. It’s an honest message imparted by Lois to her boys early in the film that offers up both a path forward and to a path to peace, to not let grief consume you and to dance while you still can.
There are some missteps along the way. Some of the CGI is egregiously bad, undermining the impact of several kills. The last act of the film does lose some steam as it tries to pull together long percolating emotional beats. But, these are minor quibbles for a film that manages the impressive feat of weaving together generational trauma, ruminations on the inevitability of death, and an absurd level of gore. Buckle up for a wild ride as the The Monkey drums up a level of carnage that will leave you cackling long after you leave the theater.
The Monkey swings into theaters on February 21st
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Two Cents: A Romance for the Ages in WILD AT HEART
In this week’s Lynch/Love selection, Cage and Dern sear the screen in David Lynch’s indelible love story
Two Cents is a Cinapse original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team curates the series and contribute their “two cents” using a maximum of 200-400 words. Guest contributors and comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future picks. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion. Would you like to be a guest contributor or programmer for an upcoming Two Cents entry? Simply watch along with us and/or send your pitches or 200-400 word reviews to [email protected].
The Pick: Wild at Heart
Many of Lynch’s efforts plunge into nightmarish depths, Wild at Heart sets itself apart in his filmography—undeniably Lynch, but driven by a romance for the ages. Not just a winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2002, it’s also a showcase for two of the most memorable performances committed by its leads, Nic Cage and Laura Dern. A pair of dreamers, dancing their way through an absurdist, dark world. It’s at times brutal, but it’s tempered by the fire of this unconventional and searing love story.
Featured Guest
Wild At Heart opens like Casino, ends like True Romance, and carries the pixie dust of Tinkerbell throughout. The film is a hero’s journey, if the journey was paved by the promise of the American dream—lovers’ edition. Lynch wrote and directed Wild at Heart in 1990, adapted from the book of the same title by Barry Gifford. It stars Nicolas Cage as the super cool Sailor Ripley. Sailor opens the film in a Presley-inspired Sports coat, likely purchased at Lansky’s in Memphis. He transitions into his role as a lover on the run in Cage’s own Snakeskin jacket—one that in Sailor’s words, “…represents a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom.” It is no accident that the lore associated with his jacket drives the ideology of the film and Lynch’s understanding of love, Emerald City style.
Laura Dern plays Lula Fortune, the sex pot innocent with Barbie nails and kinky blonde hair that glows like a halo. She starts the movie wearing a cotton coral summer dress paired with a single black garter belt to indicate a marital level of devotion and Guns n’ Roses era sex appeal. As the film moves forward, her outfits become more honeymoon adjacent. She wears a red lace teddie, white lingerie—to indicate a connection to the divine, and, of course, black cowboy boots—because this is America. Her hair on its own is an incredible character—untamable kinky blonde curls that exist somewhere between the crimpled hair of Erin Everly and the barrel-curled glamour of Veronica Lake.
The costume designer of this film, Amy Stofsky had a special knack for capturing the era’s sex appeal without forgoing innocence. Lula embodies the changing mores between second and third-wave Feminism. Sex positivity, MTV spring break style, was in the air, as was the night-blooming jasmine scent of this couple’s Hollywood dream of a fairy tale love story. Lynch understood that here, in Hollywood, divine intervention comes from the pink glint of Glinda’s bubble. Or, as Sheryl Lee’s Glinda puts it, “If you’re truly wild at heart you won’t give up on your dreams.”
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Our Team
Jon Partridge
Watching David Lynch’s work can often be challenging. The darker recesses of his mind are brought to life onscreen, often breaking that thin veneer of life to show what lies beneath. Be it the horrors of the American suburbs in Blue Velvet, the unraveling mind of a fearful new parent in Eraserhead, or puncturing the dreams of Hollywood in the noir-esque Mulholland Drive. Wild at Heart is simplistic in its central conceit, a steamy love story about two kids, both brought up in the wrong part of town, who found that all they truly had was each other, so they decide to leave their past behind and embrace their love. Thus begins a road trip to start a new life, both determined to outrun anyone who tries to tear them apart. A road movie of the ilk of Natural Born Killers, Badlands, and Bonnie & Clyde, there is that Lynchian vein of darkness wrapped around it. A film peppered with the weird, abstract elements that characterize his works. It’s a fairytale romance where these star crossed lovers have to contend with a motley crew of relatives, cowboys, scientists, and assassins. Cartoonish visions and fantastical interludes abound, along with references, sometimes subtle but mostly overt, to Lynch’s appreciation for The Wizard of Oz, something well explored in Alexandre O. Philippe’s ruminative documentary Lynch/Oz.
Cage and Dern are captivating here, the former as the bad boy channeling Elvis and the latter as his magnetic and assured partner in crime. Both elevate figures that in another work might be cliched, instead making them vibrant characters that sit perfectly at the center of this swirling affair. Around them, notables such as Willem Defoe, Crispin Glover, Diane Ladd, Isabella Rossellini, and Harry Dean Stanton adopt an absurdist orbit, adding to the films potent chaotic energy. Wild at Hart is often ugly, painting a violent and surreal portrait of America, but this meanness is assuaged by the central love story. It’s perhaps Lynch’s most optimistic feature, in spite of his continued embrace of more abstract ideas and imagery. A gleefully abstract experience than delivers a jolt of affirmation for love, in the face of so much adversity.
Ed Travis
I think I’m ready for David Lynch.
He was and is light years beyond me in terms of creative instinct, human insight, and singular artistic expression. But I, as a cinemagoer, appear to finally be ready to genuinely appreciate his work. I grew up in the 1980s and came of age in the 1990s, and as a burgeoning cinephile attempting to explore great work, I often bounced off the surreal, “narrative-light” style of his work. Elephant Man and Dune were near and dear to me, but I didn’t “get” whatever else I consumed.
Several years ago at a Nic Cage marathon, I finally experienced Wild At Heart and now, revisiting it in celebration of Lynch’s life, I feel like I’ve been able to go full circle from disliking his work, to cautiously experiencing it and analyzing it, to just vibing with it and genuinely connecting with it. What I perhaps might have perceived as weird for weirdnesses sake in the past, and therefore bounced off of, I now understand to be a genuine expression of the broad human experience (not to mention trauma, isolation, and a “lack of parental guidance”). What I might have understood to be “gratuitous” sex as a hormonal but hyper religious teen, I now perceive as genuine, primal human expression.
I guess what I’m saying is, Lula and Sailor’s “lovers on the run” odyssey – weird, winding, Oz-filled, and traumatic as it is, is touching and aspirational to me these days. Maybe the world has just gotten more fundamentally “wild at heart”, or I’ve grown in my understanding of the rarity of genuine partnership, mutual respect, and deep human connection. But either way, these metal-loving, fucking-like-rabbits, cigarette aficionados are less trashy weirdo and more “life goals” in my present estimation. And I’m rooting for those crazy kids to make it, together, in this ruinous hellscape we call American life.
Spencer Brickey
Like many cinephiles probably experienced after the loss of David Lynch, we became the go to “which David Lynch movie should I watch?” person to a lot of our non-film people friends. Most probably pointed towards starting with Twin Peaks. Others might have directed them to Blue Velvet, or Mulholland Drive if you thought they were ready to dive in head first. I’m sure a few of you sicko’s probably told them to start with Inland Empire and left it at that. When it comes to a great intro to Lynch, in my personal opinion, Wild At Heart is best as both an easy enough introduction, while also being a Rosetta Stone to the rest of Lynch’s filmography.
Wild At Heart is Lynch at both his most tender, but also at his most unhinged. A film about youthful love, that also contains a brutal, viciously violent murder in the opening 90 seconds. It never lets up from there, easily becoming Lynch’s most energetic film, as we move at the speed of cocaine between set pieces, watching both Cage and Dern love each other sweetly, while the world around them is filled with violence, murder, and insanity. Just like a fair share of Lynch’s work, it is about finding, and cherishing love, in a world that is filled with hate and violence.
It is filled with the usual Lynchian touches; the surrealism, the nightmarish underbelly of America, the Wizard of Oz references, women being in truly frightening situations, and a host of actors putting on performances unlike anything they’ve ever done before (except Cage, a performer like no other, who seems to be the “unstoppable force/immovable object” to Lynch’s style). Yet, it is also surprisingly linear for Lynch, especially in this era; it’s a real point a to point b affair, even if the trip along the way is filled with assassins, voodoo magic, metal concerts, and Dafoe playing the sleaziest motherfucker who’s ever lived.
In the world of Lynch, very little of his filmography is of the “easy viewing” variety. But, for those who are looking to dip a toe into the maestro’s work, Wild At Heart is a great place to start.
Eddie Strait
As I watched Wild at Heart this morning, I was dumbstruck by the whiplash I felt as Nic Cage croons “Love Me Tender” while he and Laura Dern hold each other against the backdrop of the blue sky. I found the beginning of the film to be so off-putting that I didn’t think it would be able to win me over. Yet here I am, giddy that Sailor (Cage) and Lula (Dern) managed to find a version of happiness by the end. That’s the magic of Lynch.
As we’ve all been revisiting Lynch’s work over the past month, the thing that constantly awes me is the way Lynch can draw out the most impactful emotional moments from a menagerie of things that should be too disparate to work. With Wild at Heart, the opening stretch feels like a speed run through signature Lynchian elements: extreme trauma, tonal shifts between the harrowing and the absurd, the soap-opera melodrama. If you come out on the other side of that, the rewards are immense. That starts with Dern and Cage, both of whom are never less than captivating onscreen. When they’re together? Electric.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to view any David Lynch film through anything but the lens of Twin Peaks. His early films feel like test runs for the ideas that would come into bloom on Twin Peaks. His later films riffed on the show’s ideas and themes. This is, of course, not fair to the films themselves. Watching Eraserhead a few weeks ago in preparation for the site’s Two Cents post, I couldn’t put down any thoughts without going back toTwin Peaks and that didn’t feel right for this series. But spending time in the world of Lynch, that always feels right.
Justin Harlan
Second only to Dennis Hooper in Blue Velvet, Willem Dafoe’s role in Wild at Heart is the most slimy, horrifying, and impactful villains in Lynch’s work, as far as the impression he has left on me at least. While I think a lot of great stuff has already been said about this offbeat love story, I wanted to do two things with my brief words here… first, an additional highlight on the brilliant and terrifying work of Dafoe’s Bobby Peru. And, also, to share a podcast episode I recorded on this film for my podcast CAGEMATCH! It’s linked below if you are interested… and if not, “You look like a clown in that stupid jacket”
Join us for the rest of our Lynch celebration for the rest of the month:
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CLEANER: Daisy Ridley Navigates a Sleek DIE HARD Riff
Familiar Thrills Are Still Thrills
There are certain movies that pull their premise off so successfully that they become genres unto themselves. Freaky Friday, Before Sunrise, Groundhog Day, movies that to this day you can still take their basic high concept and just do it again and so long as you add some new ingredients (“Freaky Friday but it’s a slasher movie; Groundhog Day but Tom Cruise is fighting aliens; Before Sunrise but it’s Barack and Michelle) and do your own thing with the format, you can still have a winner.
Which brings us to Cleaner, releasing this Friday (2/21). Starring Daisy Ridley and directed by Martin Campbell (Goldeneye, Casino Royale), Cleaner is doing a Die Hard. And Cleaner knows that you know it’s doing a Die Hard, and it knows that you know how Die Hard plays out. Armed with that knowledge, Cleaner nimbly plays the hits while also finding places to subvert and undercut audience expectations.
Ridley plays Joey Locke, a lifelong screw-up and Army washout currently barely holding down a job as a window cleaner for an energy company’s skyscraper in London. Joey also looks after her autistic brother Michael (Matthew Tuck) who as the movie begins has just been kicked out of another care-home. The early goings of the film quickly and effectively sketch out the details of Joey and Michael’s difficult childhood, their current fraught relationship, and Joey’s self-destructive nature.
As an actor, Ridley is at an interesting moment where she’s obviously quite famous thanks to the Star Wars films but is still trying to make a name for herself outside of her character in a massive franchise. The strategy seems to be trying different kinds of roles in various genres to see what sticks, and I’m happy to say that she wears ‘action heroine’ quite well. The obvious character comparison is John McClane, and Ridley strikes a similar balance between being sympathetic and being enough of a pain in the ass that you understand why she can’t keep a job or figure things out with her brother.
About her brother: Michael is autistic but it’s the kind of movie autism where it only seems to manifest in him carrying around a Mjolnir toy the whole movie and being a super-hacker which I’m sure will not be relevant to an action movie scenario. This kind of magical disability is nothing new, and Cleaner isn’t the worst or most offensive example (The Accountant 2 coming up soon so…there’s that). But it’s such a hoary old trope and Michael’s tics are such a copy of a copy of a copy of Rain Man that I just wish they hadn’t done it. You don’t need some special excuse for why siblings would have a difficult relationship as adults, so this feels like the screenplay adding in one cliché too many.
But I also want to praise the screenplay for the efficiency with which it lays out this particular gameboard. I’ve seen enough action movies that flub basic mechanics to appreciate when one constructs its plot through clean cause and effect storytelling. Michael gets kicked out of his home, so Joey is late for work, so her boss makes her stay late, which is why she’s still dangling outside the building when the company’s party gets raided by eco-terrorists.
Our main baddies are leader Marcus (Clive Owen) and unhinged henchman Noah (Taz Skylar), who are seeking to hold the company leadership accountable for not only their climate-destroying policies but also the public lies and corrupt dealings that have made them all the more rich and powerful while the world burns.
It’s once these pieces are in motion that Cleaner starts having fun riffing on and diverging from expectations. While the bad guys in Die Hard were a more or less united front, there are fractures between Marcus and Noah that allows Cleaner to explore new ideas within the familiar format and keep viewers on their toes.
Owen knows exactly what he was hired to do and he brings the necessary gusto and swagger to his terrorist leader.
The real surprise is Skylar, who I know from his performance as Sanji on the Netflix adaptation of One Piece. On One Piece, Skylar was immediately both lovable and happily ridiculous, perfectly straddling the line between sincere humanity and the gonzo extremes of anime. Here, armed with a shaved head and a maniacal gleam in his eyes, he’s a legitimately unsettling villain and it’s a lot of fun watching him bounce off the steely Ridley.
With Die Hard, director John McTiernan famously asked for a rewrite to turn the terrorists into thieves masquerading as terrorists, arguing that that would be more fun. In Cleaner, though, the villains are indeed terrorists, but they’re also completely correct in their beliefs and their ‘victims’ are odious bastards even without the whole ‘actively killing the world for a buck’ thing.
It’s another interesting wrinkle in the set-up and speaks to how Cleaner stays one step ahead of the audience to keep things fresh.
The action is a little more sparing than I would like, with Joey remaining stuck outside the building for quite a while. When she finally gets inside and things get more physical, Campbell demonstrates again that he’s one of the best we have in staging practical, comprehensible action. The hand-to-hand and gunplay is all very well done: fast, brutal, exaggerated enough to be fun but not tipping over into John Wick-ian gun-fu. Ridley is front and center for much of it, throwing herself into the fray and acquitting herself well.
Cleaner doesn’t reinvent the wheel but, you know what? The wheel is great, it works fine, it doesn’t need reinventing. Who are you weirdos asking for new kinds of wheels, anyway? I’m sure Silicon Valley has a couple different multi-billion dollars ventures sunk into exploding the paradigms of the wheel industry, go bother them. Freak.
For the rest of you, Cleaner is a straightforward, well-made, and well-acted programmer. It’s not in the upper tier of “Die Hard on a…” movies like Speed, but it’ll fit right in alongside the dozens of others in the category under that: your Die Hard sequels, your Under Sieges, your Air Force Ones, etc.
At a time when studios are cutting and reshooting their movies dozens of times and then slapping the movie-shaped thing together and shoving it into theaters, and at a time when streamers are cranking out ‘content’ that seems algorithmically generated from first frame to last, I more and more appreciate sturdy, meat and potatoes fare like this. The old tricks still work just fine so long as you bother to play them properly.
Cleaner is in theaters Friday.
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THE MONKEY is a Blood Soaked Banger
Oz Perkins is back with his follow-up to Longlegs, which feels very much like a companion piece to his previous take on generational trauma by way of a very loose, yet strikingly authentic Stephen King adaptation. Based on the story The Monkey – from Skeleton Crew, the film builds on the bones of that narrative of a toy monkey that when activated, wreaks havoc. Here activating the mechanical monkey instead results in one random and spectacularly freakish gory death – but you can’t tell the monkey who to kill and you won’t know when it will happen. The film follows Hal, whose family was torn apart by the cursed object, which came into their possession thanks to their father (Adam Scott in an all too brief cameo), an airline pilot who brought it back one day as a simple souvenir.
Like a good portion of King’s properties the film starts as something akin to a coming of age story in a simpler time; here the 90s (Ouch!). Hal and his brother Bill in their tweens discover the monkey while going through their father’s belongings, some time after his disappearance from their lives. It’s here the film starts its thematic exploration of the lengths parents would go to protect their family and their consequences on both parties. This is because we as an audience, thanks to a completely batshit crazy opening scene – have witnessed that Hal’s father’s absence was in fact related to an unsuccessful attempt to get rid of the monkey. The two brothers quickly figure out the crux of the monkey’s powers thanks to a few very impactful deaths they incur on those around them, prompting them to dump the toy in a well. The problem is, like all terrible family secrets, 25 years later the Monkey returns.
It’s these thematic threads of family secrets and generational trauma that echoes back not only to Longlegs, but in particular to our director Oz Perkins, who obviously used the film to once again work through some of his own issues. Perkins’ father Anthony Perkins, star of Psycho, lived a double life as a closeted gay man in the public eye, and was even married to a woman for his entire life. He hid his HIV diagnosis from his family for six years, only to be outed by the National Inquirer and then succumbing to the virus 2 years later. In the film this thematic thread is explored by not only young Hal who doesn’t understand why his dad chose to abandon him, but how he later understands the lengths a father would go to protect his children from the monkey, when it comes to his own son.
Along with the crazy ass deaths, there are some stark parallels that make this film much more personal that you would think, adding a bittersweet layer to the film’s more comedic and absurdist moments.
Visually the film is a lush and blood drenched spectacle, that has the unique ability of making you both wince and cackle at the same time. The violence here almost feels like a response to the horror fans who complained that Longlegs was too cerebral and lacked the gore and bodycount they projected on the film thanks to its marketing campaign. It’s all here, splattered across the silver screen in plenty of holy shit moments. The script is also mired with a dense poignant subtext that is countered with the larger than life, almost cartoonish absurdity that reminded me of all films Maximum Overdrive. That’s a film with a very similar internal battle of tones, which offers up the best reproduction of King’s trademark humor that is usually only available in literary form. I hadn’t read the story before I sat down, but after watching the film I read it and realized all these moments that I swore were King’s invention belonged to Perkins.
The fact that Oz’s deeply personal script can spend its runtime operating on these dual bandwidths is primarily thanks to Theo James, who here turns in a damn masterful performance as both Hal and his twin brother Bill as adults. It’s not simply a gimmick, a la Lifetime Network either, each twin literally leans into their side of the tone coin presented here and Theo does this code switch flawlessly. There’s also something in his delivery of the dialog that, depending on his role, feels so deliberate and given so much thought. There’s a palpable weight and warmth to Hal’s dialog in its delivery. It’s something that guides the audience on this journey, since he of course does the trademark King voiceover as well.
Here I am a week later still processing the horror The Monkey, it’s a dense meal for horror fans that has the gore fans want, but also a deep unnerving subtext as well. It’s easily one of my favorite horror films of this year so far, BUT — if you happen to know about the writer/director’s backstory the film morphs into completely different work that’s elevated by the demons Perkins has trapped in celluloid for all to see. The Monkey as far as I am concerned locks Perkins as one of the best horror auteurs working today, because adapting King isn’t easy, but here he takes a story and while infusing it with his own ideals and life experience, also infuses it with King’s trademark pitch black humor that I think only Romero was able to reproduce and present on screen properly. The Monkey is an instant horror classic, fueled by some very real trauma that manifests itself in one of the most entertaining absurdist horror films of the last few years.
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THE MONKEY Laughs In The Face of Death
The newest film from Osgood Perkins is an instant gallows humor classic.
Courtesy of Neon As a child, I was obsessed with my own death. From the moment I learned that I would one day die, it was routinely all I could think about. I remember laying awake at night, staring at the ceiling, terrified that I might die in the night and that I’d never know. The vastness of it terrified me, and that was even before I had contemplated how everyone I knew would also die. Sometimes I will still find myself feeling my mind wander to this ultimate fact, that all our lives have, essentially, the same ending.
Quite obviously director Osgood Perkins has had similar moments, as this cruel fact serves as the central cornerstone of his new film The Monkey. Even the movie’s tagline is “Everybody dies.” An adaptation of a Stephen King short story, the film’s script lifts the topline premise (killer monkey toy) and a few character names to craft a mostly original tale about the inevitability and carelessness of death. But rather than using that story structure as means of dread, Perkins takes a more surprising approach. He makes a joke of death’s inscrutable nature.
One is loath to open the box on what is and isn’t a horror film. But perhaps the most surprising thing about the Monkey, given its morose subject matter, is that it puts its humor front and center. This isn’t a scary movie or even a tense one; it is a hilarious comedy about a horrific topic. It blends the madcap zaniness of an Evil Dead film with the Rube Goldberg death mechanics of a Final Destination. By making a joke of death, of our shared fate, Perkins is able to show the cosmic absurdity of it all and make an all-time gallows humor classic.
Hal Shelburn has a problem. There is a monkey that has been haunting him, namely a toy monkey drummer that was left behind by his deadbeat father. That wouldn’t seem to be a problem, except that every time the monkey bangs his drum, someone Hal knows dies a horrific death. The only person who knows Hal’s secret is his twin brother Bill, and after causing one death too many, Hal knows he has to bury the monkey in a well. But when mysterious, cataclysmic deaths begin occurring again in Hal’s adulthood, he realizes that monkey must be back, and that he has to stop it once and for all.
Courtesy of Neon This barebones premise serves as the background for the main event of the film: a series of increasingly grisly and innovative death, depicted in glorious gory detail. But the deaths are never lingered upon, but rather hyperbolically horrific. At one point a character is trampled to death in a sleeping bag to the point where they appear to be transformed to hamburger meat. Another death involves someone diving into an electrified pool, which for some reason causes their body to immediately explode.
The scale and absurdity of these deaths make them less disturbing to behold as they are delightfully silly, taking the often overwhelming topic of gruesome ends and making them a spectacle. It belittles death as a concept, laughing in its face and defanging it. The end result is both satisfying and cathartic, taking the ultimate fear shared by all people and making it a punchline. Perkins’s last film, horror-thriller Longlegs, struggled balancing a tone of dread versus campiness. There is no such tone disjointedness here. This film puts it’s foot on the gas for the silly, and is all the better for it.
Perkins is buoyed by some fantastic performances, most centrally Theo James, who plays both the adult versions of Hal and Bill. Hal never plays the comedy of his circumstances, fully committed to playing the horror of the circumstances. But even as the deaths grow more and more ridiculous the longer the Monkey’s reign of terror lasts, even within the structure of the film, Hal seems to be aware of just how absurd it all has become. The always wonderful Tatiana Maslany plays the twins’ mother, whose brash and unfiltered style of mothering should be an inspiration to all parents. Even one-scene cameos by Adam Scott and Elijah Wood delight, even if they beg for more screen time.
But it is the Monkey itself that serves as the true star of the show. Little more than a pair of wide eyes, an unnerving grin, and a spinning drumstick, the little guy is consistently one of the greatest comic presences of the film. Really it is all in the edit; anytime the movie cuts to the little guy, his eyes wide, observing all, it elicits a devilish grin. And that is the power of the film; when the avatar of death, the very embodiment of destruction rears its head, you don’t feel dread. You feel joy.
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LEGEND OF THE EIGHT SAMURAI (1983): A Pop Princess Assembles Avengers [Blu Review + Unboxing]
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Eureka Sonny Chiba! Hiroyuki Sanada! Kinji Fukasaku writing/directing! Power ballads in the trailer! These are a few of my favorite things, AKA the names and stylings that caught my eye when I first saw the trailer for 1983’s Legend Of The Eight Samurai and decided yes, I must review this film. I think most folks would be familiar with the name Sonny Chiba, he of the famous Street Fighter film franchise and Hattori Hanzo the swordsmith in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill. Hiroyuki Sanada might be less well known to some in the West, but has risen to prominence as the lead in the massively successful and seminal Shōgun this past year. And many readers might be familiar with Kinji Fukasaku’s final opus after a lifetime of filmmaking: Battle Royale! This assemblage of talent was more than enough for me to seek out Eureka’s new Blu-ray release of Legend Of The Eight Samurai, a film I’d never known existed, but I’m sure happy to have been exposed to.
Despite all those names that attracted me to this release, the headline star of the film is someone I was unfamiliar with, a young pop idol named Hiroko Yakushimaru as Princess Shizu. And the primary driver of this film was producer Haruki Kadokawa, another talent I was unfamiliar with, but which drove the creation of this wild ride of a film. According to the stellar bonus features made available on this release, Japanese cinema wasn’t exactly at a high point in the early 1980s, and Kadokawa sought to pull from the pop culture hits of the west as inspiration for this sci-fi/fantasy/samurai hybrid. It was this approach that brought us a somewhat classical samurai tale starring a young pop idol with a rabid youth/cult following, featuring western-style English language power ballads, and several sci-fi and fantasy story elements that brought visual effects into the mix. But all while ripping off Seven Samurai, of course… because why not?!
Legend Of The Eight Samurai tells the tale of Princess Shizu, the last surviving member of her ruling clan, who were all mercilessly slaughtered by an evil sorceress, who assumes power in the vacuum, bathing in the blood of her victims to assure eternal youth. But there is a prophecy that 8 mystically chosen dog warriors will come to the aid of Shizu and restore righteousness to the throne. Many glowing orbs, mystical monsters, and spectacular action set pieces ripped quite directly from Star Wars and Indiana Jones will follow, as well as a nice little redemptive/romantic arc for the strapping young Hiroyuki Sanada! There’s not an original bone in Legend Of The Eight Samurai’s body, the sum of a thousand pop culture influences mixed together in an attempt to form a mass market hit; but damn if it’s not gloriously entertaining throughout the spinning of its yarn.
I guess I’m just a sucker for every component of this smorgasbord, because while this movie really shouldn’t work (and many will feel that it doesn’t), I can’t help but be charmed by it. For most of the runtime it does look and feel like a traditional samurai film. But then a massive centipede monster will show up, or some black magic will happen aided by 80s style visual effects. And then there’s that power ballad penchant I mentioned. And while the film is most definitely aping Seven Samurai, it almost simultaneously feels ahead of its time, like a proto-video game movie with a bunch of side quests and mini-bosses leading up to a final assault/boss battle.
What worked well for me may not work for everyone, but within 10 minutes you’ll know what you’re getting and if you aren’t vibing with it in the earliest moments, it’s probably not going to click for you. But if, like me, you’re a fan of virtually every ingredient of this cobbled together recipe, you might just join the Hiroko Yakushimaru fan club and start pumping your fists along to the power ballads like I did.
The Package
Eureka put together a pretty gorgeous Blu-ray package here for this pop smash hit that may not have been so much of a critical darling. Most importantly, the film itself has some real visual splendor if you can appreciate 80s style VFX, and this first-time-released in North America title got the 4K restoration treatment. Along with some killer artwork that I’ve got featured here in unboxing photos, you also get an essay from Tom Mes, a new audio commentary track, and a fascinating interview with Fukasaku’s son Kenta. Limited to only 2000 copies, I am thrilled to have gotten to experience this curio and feel many fans of samurai cinema and Star Wars knock offs would feel similarly if they picked up this release for themselves.
Legend Of The Eight Samurai hits limited edition Blu-ray from Eureka 2/18/25
Unboxing Photos
And I’m Out.
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Taking a Trip with PADDINGTON IN PERU
It’s the third go-round for the funny but gentle Paddington franchise, centered on the sweet young bear whose transformative kindness touches everyone around him, whether he’s in a new neighborhood or locked up in prison. It’s a well-loved franchise; Paddington 2 in particular is famous for its long-held title of the highest rated film by critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and a reference to its outstanding excellence even earned a spot as the most memorable scene in the Nicolas Cage film The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.
This second sequel isn’t quite as good as its predecessors, but is still a lovely and well worthwhile return to the kind world of Paddington and his family and friends (both bear and human).
When Paddington (Ben Whishaw) receives some distressing news about his beloved Aunt Lucy (Imelda Staunton) in South America, he decides to make the trip back to the motherland to see her. His adoptive human family, the Browns, decide to join him – it’s a chance for the once close-knit family, now becoming more disconnected with two busy teenagers, to spend some time together, and a chance for Mr Brown (Hugh Bonneville), who works as a risk assessor, to try to curry some much-needed clout with his adventure-minded new manager at work (Hayley Atwell), who questions him – and his role – as boring and unnecessary.
But the Brown family’s arrival in Peru is met with more bad news – after behaving strangely, Aunt Lucy has disappeared into the jungle, much to the dismay of the singing nuns who run the retirement home for bears, including the Reverend Mother (Olivia Colman).
And thus begins the trek into the jungle to search for Aunt Lucy, with a little help from a handsome riverboat captain (Antonio Banderas) and his daughter (Carla Tous). It’s an adventure to find Aunt Lucy, but also a whole lot more – including getting in touch with Paddington’s origins.
If you had to pick one character who represents the soul of the Paddington movies, it would be, well, Paddington. But a close second would be Mrs Brown, played by Sally Hawkins in the prior two films. Unfortunately she does not return, and while Emily Mortimer (a great actress in her own right) capably steps into the role in Peru, it’s a palpable loss to recast such an integral character.
Paddington in Peru is a grand adventure with laughs, thrills, and maybe some tears, and overall I loved it! But at the same time I can’t place it as high as the (incredible) first two films directed by Paul King. Veteran music video director Dougal Wilson takes the reins on this sequel in his feature debut. And while on paper it sounds plenty absurd the follow up to the highest-Tomatometer film of all time with a first-timer, in truth he definitely rises up the challenge of a sprawling, global adventure that’s inherently a bigger logistical challenge that its predecessors.
Paddington in Peru opens theatrically in North America on Friday, February 14th.
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CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD, Superhero Fatigue is Here and It’s Real
Superhero fatigue is here and it’s real. Look no further than Disney’s much-delayed addition to the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Captain America: Brave New World, as first and final proof of that proposition. Fatally undermined by muddled, unfocused plotting, vague, ultimately meaningless politics (or lack thereof), and anonymously directed, stakes-free set pieces, and the result clarifies the currently woeful state of the MCU: desperately in need of a top-to-bottom refresh or universe-resetting reboot and if neither approach works, a long, uninterrupted period in hibernation or stasis.
Captain America: Brave New World opens with the obligatory, underwhelming set piece as the “new” Captain America, Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), drops in from the sky for a brief smash-and-grab, stopping disposable henchmen and their leader, Seth Volker/Sidewinder (Giancarlo Esposito), from stealing a super-special case containing the latest Whatsit/McGuffin. Wilson, of course, saves the day, rescues the hostages, a Catholic priest and a gaggle of nuns, and retrieves the case, delivering it to the new president of the United States, ex-general Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford).
Long considered a foe and/or antagonist to the libertarian-aligned Avengers, President Ross has taken a more conciliatory tone with Wilson, offering him the chance to restart the Avengers, albeit once again under Ross or U.S. control, and more importantly for the plot at hand, inviting Wilson, Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez), Wilson’s sidekick and the new Falcon, and Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly), an old friend/mentor and ex-soldier, to the White House for a meet-and-greet with world leaders to negotiate the terms on an international treaty dividing control over Celestial Island (see, e.g., The Eternals, for more about the half-born Celestial who perished in the Indian Ocean).
For Bradley, the first Black super-soldier, once lost to history, unjustly imprisoned, and now, belatedly restored to respectability, meeting the newly elected president, let alone returning to the public eye, means recognition of past harms made by the U.S. government, if not outright reconciliation. Bradley’s mistreatment, a consequence if not an effect of his Blackness, like Wilson’s decision to take up the Captain America name, points to a level of complexity, not to mention contradictory ideas about America, American exceptionalism, and its failures, that Captain America: Brave New World deliberately fails to explore meaningfully, the unsurprising result of corporate cowardice on Marvel’s owners, Disney.
Before Bradley and the others can enjoy Ross’s “one for all, all for one” speech, a Manchurian Candidate-inspired attack abruptly ends the conference, leaving Ross uninjured but vowing payback, Wilson no longer on Ross’s good side, and Bradley imprisoned again, this time for his unwilling participation in the attack. That, in turn, compels Wilson, moved by his friend facing the rest of his life in prison or worse, the death penalty, to do what he and his predecessor have always done best: Go it mostly alone, go rogue (i.e., unsanctioned), and start digging into the wide-ranging (insert several yawns here) conspiracy that led to the attack and its aftermath.
What Wilson, Torres, and later, Ruth Bat-Seraph (Shira Haas), Ross’s Israeli-born right-hand security aide, learn won’t be spoiled here, but it takes the trio back to the MCU’s humble beginnings (2008) and the first, stumbling steps the then 2-film franchise took toward a shared superhero universe and the Avengers.
Cue a series of escalating misunderstandings (between allies, real and imagined), miscommunications (between nation-states), and a long-forgotten supervillain literally emerging from the shadows to drop some exposition on Wilson and his support crew. By then, the time has arrived for several more set pieces, including Captain America: Brave New World’s standout sequence, an airborne Captain America and the Falcon vs. both American and Japanese fighter jets over the Indian Ocean. Succeed and all goes back to the status quo ante, however imbalanced in the U.S.’s favor that might be. Fail and everything goes sideways. Also, hello, World War III (superheroes not invited).
Why Marvel’s Powers-That-Be (PTB) would think, let alone imagine, that audiences would find a heretofore unaddressed plot point even remotely worthy of inclusion in Wilson’s first – and possibly last – standalone superhero adventure remains unanswered. At least, it’s not an answer Marvel’s PTB decided to share with fans before Captain America: Brave New World hits theaters. It’s one, however, someone will have to answer eventually. Until then, it would be irresponsible not to speculate.
Ultimately, Captain America: Brave New World offers nothing of novel superheroics or original storytelling, instead taking an anodyne approach that will please few and annoy or bore many, repeating the same, tired tropes in over-familiar ways, dooming the onscreen characters and the audience on the other side of the screen to the MCU’s equivalent of Groundhog Day.
Captain America: Brave New World opens theatrically in North America on Friday, February 14th.
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PADDINGTON IN PERU, Everybody’s Favorite Bear Returns, Unfortunately to Diminishing Results
After almost a decade, multiple start-stops, and additional, unrelated delays (the 2023 SAG-AFTRA Writer’s Strike), Paddington in Peru, the long-awaited, much-anticipated third entry in the commercially and critically acclaimed live-action franchise makes it to stateside theaters. To suggest Paddington in Peru was – and is – worth the lengthy wait might be an overstatement, especially in comparison to the artistic heights of its predecessors (Paddington and Paddington 2), but that’s less than a knock against the sequel than a reflection of reality.
Paddington in Peru picks up some time after the second entry in the series. Paddington (voiced by Ben Whishaw), the marmalade-loving, hijinks-prone, ultra-polite bear, has become a full-fledged member of the Brown clan, officially adding “Brown” to his passport application. Once an undocumented immigrant, adoption by the Brown family has settled his status as a British citizen. Still, Paddington needs a passport if he wants to travel abroad, specifically if he wants to visit his aunt, Lucy (Imelda Staunton), long a resident of the Home for Retired Bears in the country, Peru, where Paddington was born, adopted by two elderly bears, and raised for a time before shipping off to a new life in the UK (United Kingdom).
While there’s no longer any doubt about Paddington’s place in the Brown clan (he’s one of their own and vice versa), a letter from Aunt Lucy stirs Paddington’s conscience: She’s lonely and misses her nephew. Keen to assuage her loneliness with a visit, not to mention acquire and use his British passport for the first time, Paddington convinces the Brown clan to join him on his trip back to Peru. It’s apparently what the Browns, facing the inevitable effects of time (i.e., children growing up into young adults and leaving the family home), need to get them back on track as a familial unit, a renewed sense of togetherness, community, etc.
In addition to Paddington and his favorite blue coat and red hat, the Brown clan includes Henry (Hugh Bonneville), the family patriarch, Mary Brown (Emily Mortimer, replacing the much-missed Sally Hawkins), wife, mother, matriarch, and their two children, Jonathan (Samuel Joslin), a slacker with an inventive mind, Judy (Madeleine Harris), a soon-to-be university student, and Mrs. Bird (Julie Walters), the family’s housekeeper extraordinaire.
Finally in Peru, the Browns soon discover that Aunt Lucy disappeared, necessitating a change of plans. Instead of a reunion, the Browns, led by Paddington, have little, if any choice, but to venture into Peru’s jungle terrain. With only a single clue left behind by Aunt Lucy, the Browns obtain the services of Hunter Cabot (Antonio Banderas), a riverboat captain, and Cabot’s daughter, Gina (Carla Tous), to transport them to Aunt Lucy’s likely destination. Harried by his overly verbose, perpetually present ancestors, Cabot sees Paddington and specifically, a gift left by Aunt Lucy to her nephew as the figurative and literal key to untold riches.
Paddington in Peru wears its anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist narrative lightly, perhaps too lightly, treating Cabot’s relationship with his ancestors, visualized as nagging ghosts who push him to acquisitive extremes, partly out of pride (i.e., family name/reputation), partly to prove their sacrifices somehow justified. Banderas plays every iteration of his ancestors, including a female aviator, with just the right of cheeky, self-aware humor. Still, it’s odd to acknowledge the centuries-long effects of Spanish conquest and rule and treat it as an ongoing joke that gets more stale with each repetition.
That aside, taking Paddington, an anthropomorphic bear, out of his natural element (i.e., London), and bringing him back to Peru has other, not quite fatal consequences: The humor in Paddington’s naïve, kind, generous, generous attitude and befuddled, bewildered, bemused Brits, his propensity for pratfalls and other bits of physical comedy, and the centrality of his relationship with the Browns. Each, in turn, gives way to an overabundance of plot and incident and an underabundance of gags and whimsy.
Buoyed by note-perfect performances, especially Ben Whishaw’s turn as the voice of Paddington, breezily unobtrusive direction by first-timer Dougal Wilson, and its always welcome positive, optimistic message about family, community, and belonging, Paddington in Peru delivers, if not another must-see entry in the series, then the next best thing: a perfectly pleasant, family-oriented experience.
Paddington in Peru opens theatrically in North America on Friday, February 14th.
