Everyone remembers the iconic image of the monkey with cymbals on the cover of Stephen King's Skeleton Crew. Or maybe you're more familiar with the poster of George A. Romero's Monkey Shines. Or perhaps you're conflating both of them, as I did, and thought they were the same story. The symbol of the cursed toy monkey that brought about death held a great deal of potential to the imagination of a young child. Regardless of what fear strikes into your heart upon seeing this poster, it's unwarranted. Oz Perkins stripped most of the dread out of King's original short story and replaced it with an over the top horror comedy that for some reason doesn't work as well as it should. Some of the gore and Final Destination-esque mishaps are fun, but it doesn't congeal into anything solid and feels more like a misguided parody of the genre.
2½ freak accidents out of 5
Theatrical Note: A teaser for Perkins' next film, Keeper, is featured at the very end of the credits.
2 comments:
I thought it was supposed to be Monkey Shines, too!!! Mandela Hi-5~
I'm almost certain there was some kind of intentional synergy at play there to bring in fans of both, given that Romero and King collaborated on other projects together. It all aids in blurring the lines of (shitty) memory.
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