The Monkey's Paw (2013) Reviews

• Another classic horror story bites the dust

  the_wolf_imdb2014-04-02

  Oh boy. Another mildly amusing Victorian horror story has been converted into another American slasher borefest. The recipe how to do it is very simple: Ignore the original setting of the story an chose today's America instead. You may choose mildly interesting place like New Orleans if you prefer to make the story somewhat exotic. Get rid of original characters of the story and replace them with good looking young folks. They are more interesting to look at and the viewer will forgive them as they behave as brain dead. Also ignore the original mythology and premises of the story - replace all these cults and gods and mysterious sellers just with a drunken boy in a bar. This will also explain why the folks use powerful magical devices with an incredible level of stupidity: They just do not believe it actually works. And now for the real "American twist of the original story": The story is usually about the device itself and the ways how the main character plans to use it without the backfire as it was advertised by its seller. Just do not care about the device at all and just focus on cheap TV soap grade interpersonal relationships of the young and stupid characters. No real depth is really needed as in the TV. The plot it is also simple: The first third will be wasted on the introduction of the characters and their TV soap opera class problems. Then for a 60 seconds there is a device and the rest of the movie is running, driving, fighting, screaming, slashing, shouting and crying. You know - emotions. The more people are killed the better - you need a lot of blood in the horror stories these days. You know: How folks should understand their are watching the horror if there is no blood? Just do not forget: The main enemy must be older man with a beard. That makes him different from the young lovable characters. In the end please do not forget to show the plot device for about 5 seconds so the viewers can know that if they pay a lot for a tickets and DVDs they may have a whole series made in this very manner. Sort of preview I would say. I really have no idea why Americans hate so much other cultures so they feel entitled to "upgrade" their horror story to this mild tasting bland coca-cola-KFC blend. But it is really horrid. What's even worse I do love original American horror stories. Just this sort of cultural rape made by brain dead script writers and producers makes me sick. It's insulting and what is more - it's really stupid as this makes resulting coca-cola-KFC blend sooooo predictable and boring. Seriously: Stop doing that. Please just stop doing that. It fails most of the time. Do what you can do very well: Variations like The Cabin in the Woods. This was not dumbing down the original stories but improving over them by telling an entirely new story inspired on the older ones. That was way better.

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• The Monkey's Paw: Harmless enough re-imagining of a classic tale

  Platypuschow2017-08-21

  The Monkeys Paw is a tale that has been covered cinematically several times over the years including as far back as the early 30's. It tells the story of a paw that grants wishes but the twist is that it corrupts whatever it provides. The original story always told of a parent who wants a deceased child returned from the dead, this version tweeks that slightly but is still loyal to its source material. Stephen Lang brings life to the rather dull cast and brings forth a performance only rivalled by his in Don't Breathe (2016) Not the best version and a tad slow this is one of those premises where you could do a lot with it but here they fail to do so. Perfectly watchable but perhaps should have been somewhat better. The Good: Stephen Lang The Bad: Oddly boring Things I learnt from this movie: Monkeys Paw would make a great television series!

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• Disappointing

  anitsuj2014-10-19

  The bottom line: don't waste your time. This should not be called "The Monkey's Paw." This has nothing to do with the original story. I am so very disappointed! I was hoping that the story was brought to the big screen. I could not be any more wrong. I highly suggest for viewers who like the original story NOT to view the movie. However, if you have never read the original story or do not like the original story, watch the movie an decide for yourself how bad the movie REALLY is. Truly, it id REALLY bad. If you decide to waste your time with this movie, I hope you have the chance to do something else constructive in parallel. I hope somebody decides to remake this movie the way it is supposed to be.

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• Just bad

  videodrome12342014-08-23

  Last week I did a review of Brett Simmon's new direction Animal. I mentioned that he had previously done a film with this production company, which according to critics wasn't the best film either. Well I gave the film a go at proving them wrong. It was made by Chiller Films and was released not long ago. It's genre? The one that seems to go hand in hand with the director. Horror. Monkey's Paw had a lot of the same going for it as Animal, but I'd be hard pressed to call any of it positive. While it's true that the story isn't about a wild beast, but an ancient horror legend, we end up with a zombie story, with a dash of voodoo, and a pinch of modern day America. The problem with stories like this is that they are cliché and not really all that interesting. The story: The film centers on Jake Tilton, who acquires a mystical "monkey's paw" talisman that grants its possessor three wishes. Jake finds his world turned upside down after his first two wishes result in co-worker Tony Cobb being resurrected from the dead. As Cobb pressures Jake into using the final wish to reunite Cobb with his son, his intimidation quickly escalates into relentless murder-- forcing Jake to outwit his psychotic friend and save his remaining loved ones. First off granting wishes, voodoo story is a little overused, there have been oodles of films about this topic and if that's all they were about they didn't really stand out of the crowd. The whole story and atmosphere would work great in say a Tales from the Crypt episode, but not in a feature film. Plus the film has a bunch of things wrong with it too. First off it's so TV movie. It's not really that it's just reminds me of one and the script helped in that department. Not to mention that it's so riddled with logical holes it's Swiss cheese. Sometimes they were made out of stupidity, sometimes it just seemed they weren't really paying attention. The next problem is something I spoke about in relation to Animal too – though it was a lot more annoying in that film – is the fact that there is no blood. Yeah you can make a case for that not being too important and it really isn't if the film has something else going for it, if it has squat? Then at least it could be bloody no? Unfortunately it's sorely lacking here. The one positive thing are the actors, who did a solid job, other than that I don't really have anything good to say about it. It seems like this production company is predominantly going for broke in horror stories that can be easily shown on TV. But then I kind of don't get how come they don't just make films for the SCI-FI Channel. All in all the director Brett Simmons was true to himself. Animal was a kind of pointless, but watchable once, mediocre horror and so was Monkey's Paw. I think the whole thing took a left turn at Albuquerque when they picked out the basic story. Sure that makes it hard to go anywhere good, so then why the hell make the film? 2/10 https://www.youtube.com/user/Videodromeblog

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• A solid, original take on a classic tale

  plasmic_steve2016-03-28

  The Monkey's Paw was written in 1902 by W. W. Jacobs, but if you didn't know that and you read the message board for this film, you'd be tempted to think it was originally a Simpsons or Goosebumps episode. While so many iconic stories like the one Jacobs penned lend themselves to parody or adaptation, the writers of this version actually created something original - which is why, I would guess, the ratings here are so much lower than they should be. Instead of giving us one more pass through of the "be careful what you wish for" scenario, the filmmakers take us in a different direction. Saying much more would ruin the story, so I'll only point out that it's not only the protagonist who suffers for his choices. All aspects of this film are competent or better. The length is also very appropriate to the overall arc and pacing. I'll also mention that the connection to the original story is so subtle that many will miss it.

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