Monkey Trouble

Welcome to The Shortening! For February, we adjust the height on our camera to focus on movies featuring vertically challenged villains. If you have your own blog or podcast and plan to do the same, be sure to leave a note in the comment with your links!

Final Destination, but with a monkey-topped organ grinder in the Death role? Sign me up!

Quick Plot: Hal is having a hard time being twelve. His father Petey disappeared long ago, leaving his pessimistic mother Lois alone to raise Hal and his cruel twin brother Bill. 

Dad's career as a pilot left the family with a bundle of foreign objects and thingamajigs. While rummaging through his supply, the boys discover an organ grinder featuring a maniacally smiling monkey. They think little of it after turning its key, but later that night, their beloved babysitter dies in a freak accident at a hibachi restaurant. 

Hal quickly connects the dots. After one more round of brutal bullying, he snaps and decides to wind up his monkey again in the hopes that it will claim Bill. Unfortunately, he learns too late that the monkey's targets are out of his hands. Instead of his brother, it's his beloved mother who drops dead.

After a few more rounds of odd deaths, Hal and Bill drop the cursed object in a deep well and move on with their rather unhappy lives. 25 years down the road, Hal works a menial job and has a strained relationship with his teen son Petey, so much so that his ex-wife is starting the process of transferring parentage to her new husband (the delightful but underused Elijah Wood). 

Their plans change when Hal discovers his aunt has died in a bizarre but somewhat familiar freak accident. Bill is convinced the monkey has returned, so Hal heads back to his small Maine hometown to investigate. 

From there, a lot of people die.

In increasingly amusing ways.

I've seen most of Osgood Perkins' filmography (the exception being I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives In the House and the new Keeper) and every time, I've found myself wanting to like them so much more than I could. The Blackcoat's Daughter is beautifully filmed but narratively empty, while Gretal & Hansel never came together for me. I'm in the minority on thinking Longlegs was just dumb, and not in a campy intentional way. My working theory is that Perkins is a much better director than he is writer. 

With all that in mind, I went into The Monkey without too much hope. 

For the second time in a row, it was a joy to be proven wrong.

The Monkey is FUN. It's mean but not cruel, and tonally so clear on what kind of story it's telling and how it must be told. This is a black comedy that establishes itself from the very opening scene and constantly reminds us by having virtually every character that isn't Hal (and even to an extent, Hal) be such an inappropriate weirdo that you wonder if Nicolas Cage's Longlegs villain didn't come from this same town. 

High Points

I really do mean it when I say the tone of The Monkey is consistently bananas in the best way. It starts with a bonkers opening scene with Adam Scott, but really solidifies itself during the most inappropriate eulogy you can imagine at the film's first funeral

Low Points

Playing twins should be an actor's dream, but Theo James never really seems to seize the moment

Lessons Learned

The best way to teach your kids about death is to pair the conversation with ice cream cones

The most surefire way to bond with an adolescent boy is via the art of dance

Nothing cramps your swinger lifestyle faster than guardianship of teen twins

Rent/Bury/Buy

I was genuinely surprised by how much I enjoyed The Monkey. It knows exactly what it wants to be, and achieves it with a wildly high level of camp. Find it on Hulu when you need a nasty laugh.

It's Another Shorten1ng!

 

Welcome to The Shortening! 

For those new around these parts, February is a special month here at the Doll's House. It's a short month that also happens to host the birthday of your short housekeeper (that's me) who, in case it wasn't clear, REALLY ENJOYS MOVIES ABOUT KILLER LITTLE THINGS.

Dolls, children, insects, leprechauns, whatever goobers are supposed to be... anything under 5'2 and murderous.

Over the last 17 years of this website and 44 years of my life, I've watched almost every killer doll movie with a budget of $500 or more ever made. PICKINS ARE GETTING SLIM.

When I first saw the poster for ROB1N (is it supposed to be caps? Unclear.), I worried that I had truly hit rock bottom. A M3GAN ripoff with a studio pedigree less reputable than The Asylum?

What was I getting myself into?

Turns out, a perfectly okay low budget movie. 

Quick Plot: Robin celebrates his 11th birthday in the traditional Welsh way: slaughtering everyone at his party with an axe before being shot.

34 years later, his wealthy father Aiden has retired from a career in military technology to rest in his sprawling countryside mansion with housekeeper Freya and cat Smokey (don't get attached). A car accident has left Aiden something of an amnesiac, but he appears to have maintained enough of his engineering memories to build a robot reminiscent of his late son.

Enter some competition: the newly engaged nephew Leo and Lexi. Leo holds some resentment for his uncle not adopting him after the death of his parents (seemingly NOT connected to the aforementioned bloody birthday; this family has rough luck). He also owes quite a debt to a violent loan shark. Could Uncle Aiden's legendary safe save the day?

Maybe, but first we have a lot of murders to pile up in the estate's barn! Because for whatever reason, that's where Rob1n decides to do his dirty work. 

Written and directed by Lawrence Fowler, ROB1N easily meets its low ambitions. The film is mostly confined to one location, and Fowler seems to know how to stage violence in shadow and amp up the horror without showing us his limitations. The storyline is probably a little more complicated than it needs to be. I spent far too much time in the first twenty minutes trying to unravel the timeline and still don't actually understand, well, what Rob1n is or how much Aiden is at fault. All that said, I needed a killer doll movie, and I found one that kept me interested for a breezy 90 minutes.

High Points

I won't spoil it here, but ROB1N has a decent twist in its last act that offered a nice ripple to where we thought the story was going

Low Points

There are a LOT of hints that ROB1N was made for less money than M3GAN's hair and wardrobe budget, but none more so than the fact that for whatever reason, almost all of the film's violence occurs in an empty, rarely lit barn

Lessons Learned

Never trust your audience to read text, even when it's on the screen long enough for them to wonder, "is the character going to audibly read this out loud?" before you let said character read it out loud

Welsh law requires a warrant to enter a house, but barns are free reign

More Welsh surprises: people will actually answer phonecalls from strangers

Rent/Bury/Buy

I went into ROB1N with the lowest of expectations, so it's hard to know if my middle of the road rating is genuine or just a "could have been so much worse." Fowler clearly knows how to put together a movie with limited resources. I wish this one had a little more umph or personality (especially in its titular villain) but I found myself pretty invested through the brief runtime. It's not a strong recommendation, but if you, like me, have exhausted cinema's homicidal doll output, then maybe this will somewhat work for you too. 

Best of the Year: 2025

Here we are!

Or maybe 17. I don’t do math. What I DO do is, every end of January, take a moment to call out my favorite movies reviewed here from the past year. Does this mean they’re good? NOT ALWAYS. Does this mean they’re relevant to a new year? BASED ON THE DATES, PROBABLY NOT THAT EITHER. 

What it DOES mean is that I really, really really, mostly really liked these movies. Links to the full reviews in each number. This year, we had a nice and round 10.

Let’s go.

10. Blades

The influence of Jaws can probably never be understated. Iconic lines, cinematic tricks, musical style…there are a LOT of ways Steven Spielberg’s first blockbuster changed the world, but it’s ripoffs that I found most exciting on this 50th anniversary. Blades, a 1988 horror comedy, puts the soul of Bruce the shark into a sentient lawnmower hellbent on destroying a golf club’s big summer tournament. The results are very dumb, and very, very fun. 

9. Night Watch

If you ever need to be reminded what it means to be a movie star, consider queuing up Brian G. Hutton’s Night Watch, where a supposedly past her prime Elizabeth Taylor tries to hold onto her sanity while wandering a creaky British estate. It’s the stately kind of stage adaptation filled with crystal decanters and shifty gardeners, with secrets lurking around every fully furnished corner. The ending is a banger in more ways than one. 

8. Alligator

The second Jaws-inspired genre comedy on this year’s list, Alligator is the kind of stupid film that only very smart people can make. Written by John Sayles, directed by Lewis Teague, and starring an often shirtless Robert Forster, this is a film that has a few deeply political opinions to ponder by way of very silly, often barely working alligator rigs. It’s an excessively good time.

7. The Feast

Not surprisingly, I love good food horror. In fact, my affection for it runs equally deep to that of folk horror, making Lee Haven Jones’s The Feast a pretty satisfying 90 minutes. The last ten years have given us plenty of ‘eat the rich’ takes, and while The Feast doesn’t necessarily reinvent the subgenre, it does bring its own serene style. 

6. Woman of the Hour

I’ve always been a fan of Anna Kendrick as a performer, so it was quite nice to discover she’s equally talented behind the camera. In her directorial debut, Kendrick explores the women whose lives were taken or fundamentally changed by real-life serial killer Rodney Alcala. While true crime generally turns my otherwise iron stomach, the version here (slightly fictionalized in details, though generally accurate in spirit) never feels exploitive. Instead, Kendrick and writer Ian McDonald use the backdrop of an incredibly unusual event (Alcala’s real-life appearance on The Dating Game) to tell a story not about a dangerous man, but one about how the women on the other side of male violence have to navigate the world. 

5. The Coffee Table

More black comedy than horror, Caye Casas’s The Coffee Table still managed to be one of my favorite, most inappropriate watches of the year. This is, to be clear, A VERY DARK RIDE. And it’s hilarious. 

4. Everyone Will Burn

Could I tell you what David Hebrero’s movie was actually about? No. Could I spend the next three hours showcasing my own performance art based on the way star Macarena Gómez wears oversized hats? You know it! Everyone Will Burn is a strange, stylish bite of magical realism that feels like the most delicious meal you can eat knowing you’ll suffer food poisoning after. Head on in expecting a beautifully strange ride. 

3. The Lamp

One of the most exciting things about scouring every streaming site on the internet is that you get to discover actual treasures from eras you thought you had already picked dry. A slasher by way of evil djinn made in 1987 and set overnight in a history museum? What ELSE has this world been hiding from me all these years? Tom Daley’s The Lamp (aka The Outing) isn’t necessarily a life-changing watch, but it’s a big hunk of good fun. While there are certainly nostalgic signs of its ‘80s peers, the movie also manages to offer real surprises and stand on its own, something that wasn’t too common for even the best output of the golden age of slashers. 

2. The Hole In the Fence

A film that has been haunting me for the better of 10 months, The Hole In the Fence follows a class of privileged Mexican adolescents as they follow a long-established tradition of camping just outside a poor village supposedly riddled with crime. The boys are safe under the care of their wealthy guardians (all of whom long ago conquered the same right of passage) but the titular structural weakness suggests something very, very dangerous has already breached the barrier. Director Joaquin del Paso is a master at building mood, curating incredibly real performances from his young, mostly untrained cast. The story calls to mind Bacurau, a similarly haunting and violent film about how the haves use the have nots as a playground for their basest urges. But The Hole In the Fence has an even more disturbing undercurrent in focusing on how the young generation is so easy to mold into something so, so awful. This isn’t a movie that will have you cheering, but if you’re looking for true horror, it’s hard to beat. 

1. The Ugly Stepsister

It’s hard to describe just how powerful a feeling it is to see the kind of film your 14-year-old self would have dreamed of making. In her filmmaking debut(!), writer/director Emilie Blichfeldt spins a world as beautiful as it is disgusting, as heartwrenching as it is hysterical. “Cinderella but from the stepsister’s point of view” isn’t a unique concept in itself, but Bilchfeldt’s execution is the kind of thing that makes you feel limitless confidence about the future of genre cinema, especially when it’s in the hands of such deranged genius.  

Lessons Learned: 2025!

I've been doing this for quite some time. 

As is tradition these last 15+ years (honestly, who can count anymore in this economy?) we begin to close out the Deadly Doll's House calendar year (which runs to January 31st for multiple reasons that you now need an appendix to understand) by extracting our favorite, most educational lesson gleaned from all the movies covered these last 365 days. 

Categorized, of course, like any good Jeopardy! board.

Urban Living

When moving into an NYC walkup, do everything in your power to make sure you hear that mover ring the doorbell. It's literally the difference between life and death (in this case) or life and a very strained back -- Woman of the Hour

The People In Your Neighborhood

You can always count on a '90s movie killer to speak in sadistic dad jokes -- Virtuosity

Nobody gives great accounting quite like a weirdo -- Out of the Dark

The only thing worse than a missionary at your door is a person eager to talk with the missionaries at your door -- Heretic

Technology In Government

Top secret military installations don't allow thumb drives, though they do grant personal access to Facebook -- War of the Worlds

Political Science

There's simply no such thing as an honest mayor in any town that has a water source -- Alligator

What's In a Name?

A furniture salesman can solve your table problems, not name your newborn -- The Coffee Table

Never confuse an arms dealer with an impotent terrorist -- Beyond the Poseidon Adventure

Being a caddy and naming your dog Caddy is a life choice rife for confusion -- Blades

Hair Today...

Nothing brings your hair to Pantene PRO-V level glory than being a kept woman -- The Free Fall

The Art of Cinema

Setting your film in a graveyard is a great trick for directors looking to take home a prop that includes their name -- The Gravedancers

The easiest shorthand to imply 'unhinged psychopath' is simply casting David Patrick Kelly -- Dreamscape

The Animal Kingdom

Sharks hate nothing more than bubbles -- No Way Up

What They Don't Teach In Med School

Nothing sterilizes your tools for organ removal more effectively than windy saltwater breezes -- Dead Sea

O-negative blood is very rare, and that's why city blood bank facilities keep their limited selection stored at unregulated room temperature in shoddy ziplock bags -- Vampire In Vegas

UK laxatives are incredibly ineffective -- The Tournament

On the Road

Everyone needs to learn what it means to be free, which is the kind of thing someone with a broken down motorcycle would say -- Campfire Tales

Architecture & Design

Corporate windows are a lot thicker than they look -- Wake Up

To the Skies

Any pilot knows never to nose in -- The Disappearance

It's bad luck to board a flight without saying I love you -- Flight 7500

Parenting

Before you leave your grandchild in the arms of his new adopted mother, maybe make sure she knows how to support his infant head? -- Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror

They don't teach screaming in lamaz -- Smashup On Interstate 5

So much of early motherhood is cutting fruit into small pieces -- The Feast

Not Parenting

Ladies, please remember that you are under no obligation to carry an antichrist to term -- Children of the Corn 666: Isaac's Return

Childing

A good son keeps an 8 x 10 glamour shot of his mother framed on his work desk -- Too Close to Home

Sports & Leisure

Scuba diving involves far too much time math -- The Dive

Much like Gallagher's humor, the best vessel for communicating tai chi is smashed watermelon -- TC 2000

Potent Potables

There's no such thing as a good domestic pinot noir -- Never Talk to Strangers

Culinary Adventures

Eerie days call for hot soup -- Exhuma

There's no better consolation than chocolate -- The Ugly Stepsister

Always keep a charcuterie board ready, even (or especially) if you live in a remote with few chances of visitors -- Oddity

Risotto has a better track record in horror than Top Chef -- House of Spoils

You Got Served

"Garden variety vigilante" is the new "virgin who can't drive" -- Hunt Club

Forensics for Dummies

Dead bodies are easier to cope with than dead husbands -- Nightwatch

When covering up a murder, never forget the crepes -- Everyone Will Burn

To properly identify a body, one must check the face and feet -- The Red Shoes

Historical Fashion

Women wore a lot of eyeliner in the late nineteenth century -- The Cursed

Women 101

Chicks love baths -- The Lamp

Freud Would Never

Fear comes in many forms, including 3' tall hamburgers -- Making Contact

The best way to jog a psychotic patient's memory is to expose him to closeups of the thing he fears most -- Genocide

Timeless Wisdom

A stopped watch is haunted at least twice a day -- The Damned

When you get old, you prepare for the apocalypse -- Deliver Us

Survival Essentials

Chekhov's law of skinny dipping remains unbroken: your clothes will be stolen. Accept it -- The Hole In the Fence

To survive hypothermia, you have to be very, very lame -- Snow Falls

If your week has been filled with hallucinations that are quickly proved to be just that, maybe wait two minutes before making a rash decision based off a visual display that seems incredibly shocking and unbelievable -- The Dark and the Wicked

Never turn your back on a human sacrifice -- Azrael

Fame!

So long as the Wisconsin Convention Center offers you more than $10K for a comic convention, you're still a star -- House of Bones

NEXT WEEK: The best of the year roundup! WEEK AFTER: The Shortening!