The Monkey portrays death as effortless and pointless for the living. Death is not fickle or picky; it just takes whatever is in its meaty little grasp. The Monkey is a hideous little chimp doll with a drum. Every time someone winds up the doll, a person dies horrifically.

Bill and Hal are twin brothers, 3 minutes apart. When they find their deadbeat dad’s monkey in his old stuff, they begin to play around with it. Bill learns quickly that the monkey is a tool of evil when it plays the drum. It beheads the babysitter and gives his mother an aneurysm.

Meanwhile, the supporting cast is clueless about death or why it exists. The young priest of the Parish makes awkward jokes about the babysitter losing her head. The boy’s mother says that death comes for everyone and the only thing you can do is go dancing. No one has any profound messages about why people are dying.

And then the problem becomes a surreal nightmare. The Monkey resurfaces in Bill’s adult years. It starts killing off a person in his town everyday. Bill feels responsible for the monkey’s killing, but he also has to explain to his estranged son why such evil things are happening. His response is “There’s nothing you can do, just go dancing.”

When the movie ends, terror and havoc has overtaken the town as the monkey goes on a drumming rampage.

The movie ends soberly and abruptly as both Bill and his son have no idea what to do with such tragedy.

James Wan and Osgood Perkins made this Stephen King short story a reality (though I swear this story was done by an MST3K film). The movie leans into bizarre jokes and slapstick gore, making a tongue-in-cheek delivery on people’s deaths.

But if you take the story one step deeper, the writer is explaining how senseless and random death is. We don’t need a monkey to teach us that people die for pointless reasons every day. Stephen King’s The Monkey mocks any authority that tries to make sense of tragedy, painting them as a bumbling idiot, while the nihilistic ones are the wise seers.

The movie hits a great point. Death cannot be controlled. It is a reality that no one could escape. Even Jesus couldn’t escape it and he was directly from God the Father. Though death is a life-changing tragedy for the living, we can only deduce that living is not a guarantee. For those that don’t believe in a soul or the afterlife, this can feel like a constant dread.

Jesus, in his earthly ministry, was much more cavalier about death. He referred to it as sleeping in one instance. In another lesson, Jesus claims death is just moving from one area to another. That other place he was preparing for his followers. He spoke with authority as if he had complete control over the matter.

If you relate to any supporting cast to The Monkey, you probably don’t think anything redemptive can happen after death. The best you can do is enjoy the time you have. But, the belief that death is just a door from one place to another has existed since the beginning of history. What if there is some truth to it? Would you trust someone who says they control it?