'The Monkey,' a wild horror comedy, shows how a toy kills and never reveals why

The first rule of “The Monkey” is there are no steadfast rules to “The Monkey.” This is a blood-red dark comedy about a toy monkey who is evil incarnate and has the supernatural ability to kill people in a variety of creative and gruesome ways, and either you go with that or you don’t.

There’s no real explanation for how and why the monkey has acquired these powers, how long the monkey has been doing the devil’s bidding, or why it will go dormant for years and then suddenly resurface and start facilitating violent deaths by way of bowling ball, electrocution, hibachi knife, stampede of wild horses, etc., etc. How could there be?

Writer-director Osgood Perkins, son of Anthony Perkins and director of horror gems including “The Blackcoat’s Daughter” (2015) and last year’s breakout hit “Longlegs,” has opted for a wildly over-the-top, mostly comedic approach this time around.

Adapted from a short story by Stephen King that originally appeared as an insert in a 1980 edition of the Playboy knockoff Gallery Magazine (the story was revised for King’s “Skeleton Crew” collection five years later), “The Monkey” embraces the sheer ridiculousness of the story, as one character after another is sent to the great beyond in manners befitting the “Final Destination” franchise. No one is safe from the wrath of that wind-up toy monkey when it bares its teeth and starts banging on its drum.

In an extended prologue sequence set in 1999, twin brothers Hal and Bill Shelburn (both played by Christian Convery) live with their loving but somewhat clueless and eccentric mother Lois (Tatiana Maslany), who is living in Blind Date Hell after the boys’ father (Adam Scott), an airline pilot, flew the coop for reasons we won’t divulge. Bill is a few minutes older than Hal and he takes sadistic pleasure in bullying his meek twin, who is also regularly humiliated by a group of mean girls at school.

Just when Hal thinks life couldn’t be any more miserable, he and his brother discover a toy monkey among the trinkets their father left behind from his world travels — a toy monkey who takes out a number of people in their lives, starting with the babysitter who is decapitated by an errant knife in a Japanese restaurant. Director Perkins and his team set the tone for the brutally comedic nature of the carnage with that early death sequence, which is played for wicked laughs — as is the subsequent memorial service, featuring Nicco Del Rio as one of the most ill-equipped priests in movie history.

Cut (slash, impale, etc.) to 25 years later. The dashing Theo James (“The White Lotus” Season 2, “The Gentlemen”) sublimates his movie star-handsome looks as he takes on the role of the grown Hal and Bill, who have been estranged for years, as each brother has taken a different path in order to cope with the multiple traumatic episodes from their past.

Hal is a dweeby loner with a short temper who avoids making friends or having contact with family, including his teenage son Petey (Colin O’Brien), whom he sees just once a year, in order to spare them from the wrath of the monkey. The mullet-wearing Bill, who dresses and acts as if he’s auditioning to become a cult leader, is obsessed with reconnecting with the monkey, who has recently returned to the small town in Maine where the boys lived for a number of years. The monkey is becoming more prolific, wiping out two, three, four, five random victims every day.

When heads roll in “The Monkey,” they literally roll. The blood-gushing kills are cartoonishly outrageous, as when one victim’s remains are described as looking like “a cherry pie in a sleeping bag” — and we get visual confirmation of that description.

Whether it’s Theo James creating two distinct and equally strange characters, or glorified cameos from Scott as the boys’ father, Sarah Levy (“Schitt’s Creek”) as their aunt or Elijah Wood as the creepy fatherhood guru author who is about to adopt Hal’s son, there’s no room for subtlety in the performances. Everyone knows this is a gory B-movie where taste is not an issue, and they play their roles accordingly.

There’s no social satire in “The Monkey,” no political messaging, no attempts to say anything deep about the ramifications of growing up in a broken home, no psychological deep digs into the sometimes strange and baffling connection between twins. It’s a movie about a wind-up toy that leaves a trail of blood every chance it gets. That’s the one and only rule of “The Monkey.”