“Monkey” is anything but an inherently scary word. In fact, it’s downright silly-sounding. Monkey. It’s not primal like ape or guttural like gorilla or weirdly sensual like simian. The only primate with a less threatening moniker is probably the bonobo, and rightfully so. Therein lies a fair portion of the dark humor that animates The Monkey, director Osgood Perkins’s adaptation of Stephen King’s short story of the same name.

Monkeys may not be scary, but of course old toys always are. The one at the center of The Monkey is a clockwork gadget that holds a drumstick in each of its paws and ratatats them whenever the key in its back is turned. And whenever that happens, someone dies, generally in bizarre and gory fashion. There’s no explanation for this phenomenon, no origin story for this fatal figurine. It simply is, and it’s been a thorn in the side of the Shelburne family for decades.

After a brutally hilarious cold open that features a cameo from Adam Scott and the second instance of intestines being winched out of a human abdomen I’ve seen this week (see below), the action moves to the present day, as Hal Shelburne (Theo James, also playing Hal’s twin brother Bill) is confronted with the re-emergence of the cursed plaything he thought he’d disposed of twenty-five years earlier. Through flashbacks to 1999, it becomes apparent that this horrific heirloom is a potent metaphor for (a) generational trauma, (b) the randomness of life and death, and (c) the creepiness of inanimate objects.

Perkins takes King’s original tale and runs with it, cranking the dial for violent slapstick up to 11 by crafting one unlikely Rube Goldberg-esque demise after another (most of which, unfortunately, are at least mildly spoiled by the film’s trailers). He also builds on a fraternal rivalry dynamic that King only hinted at. The 4-minutes-younger Hal has been traumatized into constant anxiety, to the degree that he only allows himself one week a year with his son so as to spare him exposure to the monkey’s curse, while Bill has evolved from a typical bully to something more grandiose.

The Monkey is an existentialist film, depicting a world where the only meaning is that which we ourselves create. It’s also a darkly amusing catalogue of unexpected fatality, one that exhibits far more originality and verve than Perkins’s previous effort, last year’s over-praised Longlegs. While that film took itself seriously but had little serious to say, this one is the reverse. And in a world that appears to be teetering on the edge of comprehensibility, its message of smirking nihilism almost has the aroma of comfort. (Opens Friday, Feb. 21, wide)

ALSO THIS WEEK

Cleaner: There are many noble reasons why employers might give military veterans hiring preference, but the one that comes up the most in the movies is that you never know when you’re going to need someone with special forces experience to take out a bunch of bad guys in the workplace. Such is the case with Joey (Daisy Ridley), the window washer hero of this Die Hard spawn. Joey’s late to work on the fateful day because her neurodivergent brother (Matthew Tuck) has just been kicked out of his group home for hacking into the company’s network. Out of options, she brings him along to the towering skyscraper whose exterior she’ll be squeegeeing from a suspended platform. When a band of eco-activists led by Clive Owen crashes the shareholder party of the energy company that occupies the tower, everyone inside is disabled by knock-out gas. Joey, of course, isn’t inside, which means it falls to her to go all John McClane when some of the protestors cross the line from threatening the capitalist polluters with exposure to taking them out permanently. The director is Martin Campbell, who was once a reliable purveyor of escapist action (The Mask of Zorro, Casino Royale) but whose career seems never to have fully recovered from 2011’s Green Lantern. Despite the fact that Ridley spends much of the film dangling on the outside of a building dozens of stories up, there’s never a sense of vertigo or precariousness. Workmanlike to the extreme, Cleaner isn’t painful to watch, but will evaporate from your memory like cinematic Windex. (Opens Friday, Feb. 21, wide)

ON DEMAND

The Quiet Ones: “The biggest heist in Danish history” might sound like damning with faint praise, but this fact-based, taut, crime thriller about just such an event makes for an entertaining genre entry. The flick opens with a 2007 armored car robbery in Sweden that goes violently awry, then skips ahead to the following year, not coincidentally as the 2008 global economic crisis unfolds. Kasper (Gustav Giese) is a Copenhagen boxer still waiting for his big break in his 30s while trying to provide for his wife and kid. When he gets recruited by the group behind the botched Swedish operation for a new job, he’s hesitant, but eventually signs on. The plan is to bust into one of the country’s main cash transfer stations, which involves blocking off nearby streets to prevent police response. In other words, a major logistical undertaking. In classic heist film fashion, the first half follows the meticulous planning of the often-squabbling gang, and the second illustrates how all that scheming barely survives its first encounter with actual reality. There’s a chilly, Scandinavian efficiency to both the criminal conspiracy and the film itself—character depth takes a back seat to plot machinery. But director Frederik Louis Hviid, making his second feature, serves up a brisk 96 minutes of realistic, tense larceny. (Available on demand starting Friday, Feb. 21)

ON DISC

The Cell: It’s been a quarter-century since Tarsem Singh’s debut feature was released onto an unsuspecting world, but very little about this hallucinatory mashup of music-video aesthetic, serial-killer thriller, and speculative science feels dated. For one thing, its three leads—Jennifer Lopez, Vincent D’Onofrio, and Vince Vaughn—are still very much active. Lopez follows up her breakout role in Out of Sight by playing a therapist who utilizes technology that allows her to enter the consciousness of another in order to help victims of trauma. In order to rescue his latest victim, she uses it to venture into the mindscape of a depraved, sadistic, catatonic predator (D’Onofrio) who’s been captured by FBI agent Vaughn. The real stars, though, are the design team. The sets, costumes, makeup, score, and cinematography combine into a unique gestalt, and the raft of references to art history, mythology, and more make The Cell a ripe object for explication and interpretation, which is why the massive amount of supplementary material on the new Blu-ray and 4K UHD releases of the film from Arrow Video never feels like overkill.

The disc includes four feature-length audio commentaries, and each one provides a different perspective. Two were recorded for the film’s original Blu-ray release: one with Tarsem and the other with various members of the crew. Tarsem’s track captures his passion for image-making as well as, famously, his fury when he discovered that actress Tara Subkoff, hired to play a woman trapped in a tank full of water, lied when she said she could swim. Two other tracks are new for this release. In one, screenwriter Mark Protosevich discusses his experience watching his words transform into Tarsem’s operatic vision, and in the other, film scholars Josh Nelson and Alexandra Heller-Nicholas break down many of the multi-layered references in the movie. The disc includes both the original theatrical cut as well as the European, unrated version, which includes an extra two minutes of D’Onofrio’s character’s malignant behavior. A separate disc, designed specifically for camera nerds, includes a version of the film prepared by cinematographer Paul Laufer that uses a different aspect ratio and alternate color grading. All of this comes in the sleek packaging that Arrow is known for as well as an illustrated companion volume including new writing on the film. The Cell comes from a time when analog and digital were still equal partners in the filmmaking process, which is part of what gives the film such a timeless feel. Tarsem went on to make one more sui generis feature, The Fall, but hasn’t been able to capture the same magic since and hasn’t made a Hollywood film in a decade. Even counting only those two films, however, he’s left a lasting mark on cinema history. ($28 Blu-ray or $35 UHD from Arrow Video; both available to rent at Movie Madness)

ALSO THIS WEEK

Omoiyari: A Songfilm: Musician-turned-filmmaker Kaoru Ishibashi explores the relationship between Japanese-American internment during World War II and the similarly inhumane treatment of migrants at America’s southern border today. Presented by the Portland chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League and the Japanese American Museum of Portland, and followed by a panel discussion. (Saturday, Feb. 22, Clinton Street Theater)

Black from the Past: The 16mm gurus at Astral Projections have assembled a program of vintage depictions of Black art and music, including appearances from Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, and Duke Ellington. (Sunday, Feb. 23, Clinton Street Theater)

The Way of the Psychonaut: Portland filmmaker Susan Hess Logeais’s 2020 documentary profiles Stan Grof, an early proponent of the use of psychedelics in psychiatric therapy, as well as her own personal experience of the same. The screening is a benefit for the Portland Psychedelic Society, and will be followed by a panel discussion and Q&A. (Tuesday, Feb. 25, Cinema 21)

Time Passages: Filmmaker Kyle Henry explores his family history through home movies and other materials while dealing with his mother’s encroaching dementia during the peak of the COVID pandemic. Henry will be in attendance for a post-film Q&A. (Tuesday, Feb. 25, Salem Cinema)

The Little Girl of Hanoi: Shot in 1974, during the last year of the American assault on Vietnam and among its rubble, this neorealist-influenced feature follows a young girl’s search for her father. Two animated Vietnamese short films will also be screened as part of this Church of Film production. (Wednesday, Feb. 26, Clinton Street Theater)

REVIVALS

Friday 2/21

• Batman Returns [1992] (Clinton St. Theater)
• Casablanca [1942] (Academy Theater, through 2/27)
• Drylongso [1998] (5th Avenue Cinemas, through 2/23)
• Eraserhead [1977] (Cinema 21, also 2/22)
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind [2004] (Academy Theater, through 2/27)
• The Host [2006] (Cinema 21, also 2/22)
• Menace II Society [1993] (Academy Theater, through 2/27)
• North by Northwest [1959] (Tomorrow Theater)

Saturday 2/22

• Blue Velvet [1986] (Tomorrow Theater)
• Daisies [1966] (Hollywood Theatre)
• The General [1926] (Hollywood Theatre)
• Mo’ Better Blues [1990] (Clinton St. Theater)
• Sweet Smell of Success [1957] (Cinema 21)
• Wild at Heart [1990] (Salem Cinema, Tomorrow Theater)

Sunday 2/23

• Queens of Destruction [woman-directed silent film comedies] (Hollywood Theatre)

Monday 2/24

• Malcolm X [1992] (Salem Cinema)

Tuesday 2/25

• Dolemite [1975] (Hollywood Theatre)
• I’m Gonna Git You Sucka [1988] (Clinton St. Theater)

Thursday 2/27

• Neptune Frost [2021] (Clinton St. Theater)