{"id":1617,"date":"2014-06-17T11:29:32","date_gmt":"2014-06-17T17:29:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.postmoderntrashaeology.thezombified.com\/?p=1617"},"modified":"2014-06-18T05:48:37","modified_gmt":"2014-06-18T11:48:37","slug":"the-monkeys-paw-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.postmoderntrashaeology.thezombified.com\/?p=1617","title":{"rendered":"The Monkey’s Paw (2014)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The story of the Monkey’s Paw<\/strong> has been adapted so many times, one might ask why bother? \u00a0If someone told me they were making a new version of it, that’s probably what I would say to them. \u00a0But when I walked by it in the video store today, I immediately grabbed it without a second thought. \u00a0I suppose it’s because of all the charmless, uninspired modern horror movies that line the shelves, seeing an old friend, even in a new version (just released on disk today, after an extremely limited theatrical run in October 2013), was appealing.<\/p>\n

The original story was written by W. W. Jacobs in 1902 and became a big hit. There actually haven\u2019t been that many straight filmatic versions of it, however it\u2019s themes have been coped ad nauseum in many different mediums- movies (Leprechaun, Wishmaster<\/em>), books (Richard Matheson\u2019s Button, Button<\/strong>), and tv shows from the Twilight Zone<\/em> to The Simpsons<\/em>. I was hoping for a newly made sumptiously filmed period piece with lots of creepy atmosphere and an old fashioned chilling plot without all the false grandeur and jump scares of modern horror. What I got was not what I wanted, but still not what I was dreading either (a typical, soulless and predictable modern horror movie).<\/p>\n

As old and quaint as the original Jacobs story is, it’s still fairly creepy. In it, a couple (the Whites) are entertaining a friend who tells them of his monkey\u2019s paw, a charm he got in India which grants three wishes. \u00a0The wishes, however, are cursed to show that fate rules people\u2019s lives, and that those who interfere with it do so to their sorrow. The couple wish for money, which they receive from their son\u2019s insurance policy when he is crushed by heavy machinery at his job. Then they wish for him to be alive, but he returns from the grave as is, mangled and zombified.
\nThe movie uses the original story as a starting point. \u00a0Most of it is set in modern day Louisiana and involves several workers in a factory. \u00a0The supervisor (Daniel Hugh Kelly of Cujo<\/em>) is fired because of the laziness of some of the other workers. As it turns out, he was the Whites\u2019 other son, and has carried the monkey\u2019s paw around with him ever since the incident with his undead brother (who in this movie, evidently killed his parents). When his foreman Jake tries to apologize to him for his part in the firing, he gives Jake the monkey\u2019s paw and convinces him to make a wish on it. It all goes predictably downhill from there.<\/p>\n

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Director Brett Simmons made a movie called Husk<\/em> that I watched a few years ago and had completely forgotten about until I looked him up after watching The Monkey’s Paw<\/em> to see what else he had done. \u00a0Husk<\/em> was competently made and had some interesting ideas, but the execution was bland and the pacing pretty slow. \u00a0Overall it was forgettable (which is hard to do with a movie about killer scarecrows possessing people). \u00a0The Monkey’s Paw<\/em> is an improvement in looks- the cinematography is pretty inspired (and benefits quite a bit by being filmed on location in New Orleans) and saves the film from being completely\u00a0mediocre. \u00a0The direction is still just workman like and not too phenomenal. \u00a0This could actually be a TV movie. \u00a0It has that feel to it, complete with commercial break points and very little gore or nudity. \u00a0Made for TV movies just have a certain atmosphere to them, and this one has it in spades. \u00a0Having said that, if this was made for TV it’s better than the average TV movie, more along the lines of Dark Night of the Scarecrow<\/em> in feel and tone than the average 2 hour time waster. \u00a0The characters are decent and the acting pretty well done (it includes the reliable Charles Dutton as a cop (per his usual); and Stephen Lang, who played a generic evil army commander in Avatar<\/em>, stands out as the ill-fated redneck Cobb), but still this is a fairly forgettable effort.
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\nIt’s competent, and might be worth a rental to fans of the original story, but it’s slow pace and lack of many thrills will likely grow tiresome to a lot of horror fans.
\nMy fav Monkey’s Paw<\/strong> adaptation is still the one from The Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror<\/em> (Halloween special) #2:
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