Unquiet
Things

[Whoops, somehow posted this a day ahead of time again! Dangit! Oh well!]

I had a movie on my list that I’d been dreading, one of those films I felt obligated to watch as a “serious horror fan” but knew would leave me feeling scraped raw. Thinking about not watching it was stressing me out almost as much as thinking about actually going through with it! But life’s too short for trauma porn masquerading as art, so I bailed and put on The Monkey instead. I was stupidly worked up about this dilemma,  and ultimately needed something goofy, something that might make me laugh.

The first three minutes are perfect. Adam Scott stumbles into a pawn shop, bloodied and desperate to get rid of a wind-up toy monkey, and before he can finish the transaction, the monkey triggers a brief, brutal wave of carnage. It’s absurd and shocking and sets up exactly what kind of movie this is aiming for. Then we jump back to meet twin brothers Hal and Bill as teenagers, discovering their dead father’s monkey in the attic and accidentally unleashing its power. Tatiana Maslany shows up as their mother, and she’s the only person in the entire film who seems like an actual human being. She’s irreverent and sharp and so good in her limited screen time that it makes you wish the whole movie had been about her instead. But she’s gone quickly, and what’s left is a parade of increasingly cartoonish deaths (heads exploding, bodies electrocuted in pools, the kind of Final Destination excess that’s fun the first few times and then just repetitive) strung together by characters who feel like sketches rather than people.

Theo James plays adult Hal and Bill after a time jump, and he’s too effortlessly handsome and composed to sell either version convincingly. Hal is supposed to be an anxious, absent father trying to reconnect with his son while being haunted by this cursed monkey, but James can’t quite shake his natural suave energy. Bill is supposed to be unhinged and bitter, blaming Hal for their mother’s death because Hal was born first and supposedly “ate more of the mother’s placenta”, which is actually kinda hilarious. But the movie never fully commits to being that kind of dark comedy. It can’t decide if it wants to lean into the ridiculous or explore generational trauma with any sincerity, so it ends up doing neither particularly well. I didn’t hate it, but I also couldn’t tell you much about the second half. It was fine. It made me chuckle a few times. That’s all I needed!

Looking for more 31 Days of Horror? Day Twenty Six 2024 | Day Twenty Six 2023 | Day Twenty Six 2022 | Or check my 31 Days of Horror category for more!

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