VFX BREAKDOWN THE MONKEY
MONKEY BUSINESS VFX supervisor Edward J Douglas takes us behind the gory insanity of The Monkey VFX BREAKDOWN
WORDS OLIVER WEBB IMAGES ASTERIOS MOUTSOKAPAS
W hen twin brothers Hal and Bill find a mysterious wind- up monkey, a series of outrageous deaths begin to tear their family apart. Fast-forward 25 years, and the monkey is on another killing spree – forcing the estranged siblings to confront the cursed toy. Edward J Douglas served as overall visual effects supervisor on The Monkey , having previously worked with director Osgood (Oz) Perkins as VFX supervisor on Longlegs . Douglas received the script for this film as the Longlegs shoot was wrapping up. “I was very surprised to see Stephen King’s name on the top of it, so that was exciting,” he begins. “I dug into the script, and every page I turned was some new form of bat-shittery, as Stephen King described it. I’d already worked on one film closely with Oz, so I had a good sense of his approaches and how it might look when we got to it.” The Monkey is distinctly a comedy horror, unlike Perkins’ previous films. “This is Looney Tunes ; it’s our world and our rules,” confirms Douglas. “ Gremlins was a big reference, and we looked at other Amblin movies from the eighties – films by Joe Dante and John Landis, for example. Oz described it as ‘Robert Zemeckis on acid’ as a reference point.
We knew from the start there would be a lot of digital work in the movie, but everything had to begin in the practical world. We have a whole bunch of absurd Rube Goldberg-esque kills, and each of those is a mix of stunts, practical special effects, creature effects, special effects and makeup. I’m collecting all the ingredients and orchestrating them into a final amazing gag.” The Monkey had 406 VFX shots in total, ranging from the big kills to little enhancements. WildFX supported with additional shots and sequences focusing on blood and gore. “Many of the kills were shot in pieces for safety,” reveals Douglas. “Visual effects were driving straight through the heart of this story and experience; unlike Longlegs , where it played a supporting role. “Conversations for The Monkey were always about how to make things funnier and more impactful. I don’t remember how many kills we had overall, but there are so many and they are all distinct. We discussed the blood-and-guts canon: would they be shocking deaths, for example, or quiet bloodless deaths – or blood spraying everywhere.” Another big piece of visual effects in this film centres around twin brothers Hal and Bill (portrayed by Theo James,
MONKEY SEE... Perkins altered the monkey to play a drum instead of cymbals due to copyright concerns from Walt Disney
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