“Everybody dies – and that’s life”

A quote that is repeated throughout The Monkey (2025). It becomes the foundation for the movie to stand on, as well as a sort of final moral of the story. Another repeated sentiment is to “make like eggs and scramble” – something a few of our unfortunate victims may have taken a bit too literally…

Both themes – running away from situations and people in your life & accepting that no-one has the ability to control when or how the people you love will die – are explored throughout The Monkey, with the conclusion being something along the lines of acceptance, despite the horrors. A big part of why I feel so drawn to The Monkey is certainly this conclusion, but why does this gory horror movie fill me with what seems like a sense of calm, instead of the dread and disgust I expected going into it?

I would be lying if I didn’t acknowledge my love of a horror movie that truly utilizes some seriously bloody Rube Goldberg Machines. Death, working through the (not toy) monkey, moves objects and people into the exact positions they need to be in to trigger a very specific series of event, that will ultimately lead to their grotesque and untimely demise. But can it really be untimely, if there is no proof of a greater plan?

Discussing whether people have free will or not, and whether determinism is the one true god, is not the purpose of this piece. Instead, I’ll argue that the way death operates in The Monkey, and in particular the monkeys refusal to be swayed by the efforts and prayers of man, touches a part of my heart, that I rarely let out to play; the knowledge that life is without intrinsic meaning, and thus, so is death.

Death is random – as is life

In The Monkey, Bill (Theo James without glasses) is desperate for the monkey to kill his twin brother Hal (Theo James wearing glasses), as he blames him for the death of their mother when they were children. He spins the key on the back of that monkey’s back again and again, each time begging the monkey to do what he wants – it never does.

Instead, the small town he lives in experiences disturbing amounts of freak accidents, all in the very short time he has the monkey in his possession. Death – the monkey – may have a sense of crude humor or it may just be plain cruel. Either way, it refuses to give him what he wants and finally ends up reaping him instead, a split second after he’s finally reconciled with his brother. With an unexpected new lease on life, the monkey chooses to take it all away from him. And isn’t that just typical?

When the monkey plays his silly little drum with you in mind, there is nothing you can do. The wheels are in motion and no one even knows it’s you they’re rolling toward. There is no order in which it takes its victims, like death has in Final Destination (2000). There is no ominous crow flying like a warning sign overhead, warnig the victim that this is probably the end. There is only death – random and final.

And in a way I think this randomness is deeply refreshing. Not only does it keep the characters constantly unsure of who’s next, which is good for a movie like this, but it also completely removes any responsibility from their shoulders. In the final destination universe, as I mentioned above, death picks off the victims in a very rigid order. The way they would have died in the original plan, had our main character not interrupted things and caused a bit of chaos, that’s the way they’ll die throughout the film. It’s like a checklist. It is something they figure out halfway through, and spend the rest of the runtime trying to prevent. Again.

Trying to safe other people’s lives from an entity as huge and seemingly omnipotent as death (in the final destination universe, at least) is a huge responsibility. Especially when those people you’re trying to safe refuse to listen to your advice, and decide that now’s the time to go get a tan. Rest in peace. This is taken completely off of Hal’s shoulders in the end, and the only responsibility he has is to make sure the monkey is never activated again – he will not cause any additional deaths, but whatever would have happened regardless of the monkey is completely out of his control.

And strange deaths still do happen without that monkey’s help. We see this in the end when no one has turned the monkey’s key in a good while, and still a buss full of cheerleaders is killed as our Hal and his son ride off into the sunset. Life goes on. And so do the horrible accidents, unfortunately. They will always happen. They will always be completely out of the blue and cause irrevocable damage to the ones unfortunate enough to lose someone close to them. They are unstopable – they are inevitable – they are the horrors we have no choice but to live through.

The only thing we humans can do is accept that there is nothing we can do. Hold each other close, stop running away from the people you love, and for the love of god, go dancing while you still can.

Death takes who it wants when it wants, and there is nothing we can do about it – and maybe this is also a kind of freedom

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Thank you for reading to the end! This post marks a shift in my use of this blog – hopefully I will start using it a bit more haha. Feel free to leave comments with any thoughts you might have, I would love to hear other perspectives on this movie. This was also posted on substack, where my username is Steelwhale.