How The Monkey’s Strange Celebrity Cameos Shake Up The Gory Horror Movie

Spoilers for “The Monkey” follow.

If there’s anything more bonkers than the bloody exits people make in Osgood Perkins’ new movie, “The Monkey,” it’s the surprising stars that enter it. Through this nightmarish adaptation of the short Stephen King story, a trail of blood, guts, and darkly hilarious accidents befall poor twins Hal and Bill (both played by Theo James), who are haunted by a toy monkey playing the drums (but absolutely not cymbals though, right Disney?).

It’s nothing new for some impressive A-listers to find themselves in a story from Stephen King. Morgan Freeman, Kathy Bates, and Jack Nicholson, to name a few, have all got caught up in either the supernatural or the naturally human stories of the legendary author’s works. Now while James might take center stage here, there are three fairly big talents that also get briefly caught in the grip of the monkey. 

The first surprising face shows up at the very start of Perkins’ claret-covered little treat as a man desperate to get rid of this wide-eyed little simian from Satan, resorting to drastic measures. For anyone that has spent their time in the Lumon offices, or attended the f***ng Catalina Wine Mixer you probably won’t be able to miss him, even with the questionable facial hair he’s hiding behind.

In twisted “Jumanji”https://www.slashfilm.com/”Gremlins” fashion, “The Monkey” opens with a father who desperately tries to return a gift to a pawnshop, aiming to prevent whatever has empowered this monkey from falling into his family’s hands (spoilers — it absolutely does). In this opening scene, a bloodied airline pilot with a iffy mustache pleads with the shop owner to take the monkey toy back, only to encounter the horror that always accompanies the purchase of a cursed item — a “no refund” policy. It’s incredibly bad business, but then bad business is something that Adam Scott, star of “Severance,” would likely be accustomed to by now.

Tapping into that beloved comedic spark seen in “Party Down,” “Step Brothers” and “Parks and Recreation,” Scott portrays a sky guy on edge, clearly aware of the monkey’s potential for chaos. His brief but brilliantly funny appearance underscores just how dangerous this wind-up toy can be, frantically trying to get it out of his possession. It’s so dangerous that his last-ditch effort results in the toy monkey meeting the wrong end of a flamethrower within the first ten minutes of the movie. The real problem, of course, is that it’s the pilot’s family who gets burned from this point forward and daddy dearest nowhere to be found from here on out.

“The Monkey” director Osgood Perkins shows up early in the film as the ill-fated Uncle Chip. Taking the twins in after the death of their mother, Chip is the awkward uncle who can’t quite connect to his two nephews, Hal and Bill. After their mother dies under rare and alarming circumstances, both are suffering a trauma (and one of them guilt) that will stick with them forever. It’s a bit of tension that won’t last long, though, given that following another wind-up of that darn monkey, Uncle Chip suffers a brutal death of his own.

Chip’s body is turned to mulch following a one-in-a-million instance of a horse stampede running over him on a camping trip. It’s another grim-humored visual as the coroners pour the poor guy out of his sleeping bag like a smoothie, just with added bits of bone. From here, the twins accept just what kind of monster they’re dealing with, casting a shadow over both of them for the rest of their miserable lives and forcing one to become estranged from his own son in an effort to end the curse.

At this point in his career, Elijah Wood is no stranger to horror, having starred in “Maniac” and most recently getting caught up in the mysterious history of the “Yellowjackets.” Here, however, Wood is merely a bystander in that annoying little monkey’s rampage as the stepfather to Hal’s son, Petey (Colin O’Brien).

Visited by Hal to collect Petey for his annual visit with his estranged son, Wood nails being the overly nice know-it-all of a stepdad, Ted, who announces he’s planning to adopt Petey as his own. Naturally, Hal is against the idea, but it’s a debate that’s made all the more difficult given that Ted is an expert therapist and seemingly knows what’s best. What might become even more annoying for fans is that we never see Ted again after his one-time appearance.

We’re not wishing anything ill on Wood’s annoying character, but there’s something about Ted being almost swiftly ushered off-screen that might leave audiences a bit annoyed that he’s not given any more screen time or a suitable comeuppance. What with all the funny but hugely grim deaths that befall characters in “The Monkey,” could there not have been a spare bit of time before its bizarre ending for Ted to get some treatment? After all, Wood is used to cursed items inflicting death and destruction on anyone that goes after it with the One Ring, why couldn’t one monkey cause some issues for him, too?