Neon’s The Monkey is based on the Stephen King short story and was produced by James Wan (
The Conjuring,
Saw). Released on February 21st, the feature was directed by Osgood Perkins and centers around twin brothers, who find a wind-up monkey, which leads to a series of outrageous deaths. Twenty-five years later, the monkey begins a new killing spree, forcing the estranged brothers to confront the cursed toy.
Edward Douglas served as one of the film's VFX supervisors and shares details on creating some of the key visual effects.
“The Monkey is a comedy-horror about an evil monkey - don’t call it a toy - that brings death and destruction around whomever turns its key,” says Douglas. “The picture was grounded in the look and feel of the classic practical effects and stylistic references of films such as Gremlins, An American Werewolf in London and Death Becomes Her. By design, none of the deaths in the film could be real things that could actually happen in actuality, so the Looney Tunes, Itchy & Scratchy ‘reality’ of The Monkey was a big collaboration between practical SFX, makeup FX, animatronics, stunts and visual effects. Each big moment was usually a handoff between all departments. In pre-production we had multiple ‘death meetings,’ where we discussed each big kill in detail and decided on the most effective tools to use, including multiple people exploding; at least 10 heads being removed from their bodies from multiple causes; deaths via cobra, vape, fire; and espresso machine.”
Three of the film’s death sequences showcase the collaboration between practical filmmaking and visual effects.
“For Aunt Ida, we knew we wanted to go as far as we could with practical fire, but due to schedule and safety concerns while filming in a heritage home, lighting a stunt person on fire wasn’t an option,” he recalls, adding that it was important to see actor Sarah Levy’s face under the flames.
“We developed a multi-pass approach to capture all the fire elements on-set,” he reveals. “We would first film a performance pass with Sarah Levy or the stunt performer in burn makeup. We’d then make the location safe with black duvetyne, and film a fire pass. SFX technician Ole Vezina watched the performance and re-created it meticulously with a flaming VFX head-shaped mandrel on a stick, doused in igniter fluid. Additionally, the performers were wearing a battery-powered LED halo light with a fire-flicker pattern to illuminate the set as she ran through, orchestrated by gaffer Yanni Yu and her team. Visual effects supervisor Tom Rolfe and his team at CoSA VFX painted out the halo light, tracked in the practical fire elements and sweetened the shots with blackening effects on the ceiling to complete the effect. In the end, every bit of fire in the sequence was practical.”
The swimming pool explosion is another example and was delivered by Tom Rolfe and CoSA VFX as well.
The sequence combined practical elements of a stunt-diver in the pool, a huge practical explosion from a ‘blood and guts canon from SFX coordinator Greg Pyne, and limbs and body parts tossed in the air and towards the camera by SFX technician Ole Vezina. Additional enhancements to the sequence included some classical optical FX inspired electricity, and additional blood and guts.
“Barbara’s shotgun death was similarly a collaboration between SFX and visual effects Douglas adds.
“Performer Tess Degenstein led the scene up until she fatefully opened the closet door, when we swapped her out for a dummy stuffed with blood, guts and explosives,” he shared. “We married the plates of Tess and the dummy explosion, tracking her expression onto the dummy head as it fell to the ground, and enhanced the moment with additional simulated blood, organs and bone. The sequence was completed by my team at UFX Studios by CG supervisor Scott Penner and senior compositor Dylan Burrow.”
A more CG-heavy sequence was Thrasher’s demise under the jaws of a hive of angry giant hornets. The sequence was filmed with actor Rohan Campbel performing his reaction to imaginary hornets.
“On set we were able to monitor the sequence for framing and line-up live against CG previs created by UFX CG supervisor Scott Penner, as well as capture all the requisite lighting references including a director-approved ‘bee on a stick’ for sizing and texture reference, provided by propsmaster Dana Bontempo.”
The sequence was led by Niche VFX and supervised by VFX supervisor Chris Van Dyke. After a hero CG hornet emerges from the hive, swarms of hornets comically fly through a tiny bullet hole in a car window, and fly in a tight-firehose formation right into his mouth.
“We fully embraced the Looney Toons logic of the moment, filling Thrasher with more hornets than could ever fit in any human. As the hornets ate their way back out, we consciously evoked Trypophobia, the aversion or repulsion to small holes. Chris and his team recreated Rohan’s face in CG from high-resolution scans, animating hornets chewing through simulated skin. The final beat evolved in post production as we added a car-shake, dislodging poor Thrasher’s jaw as the hornets feast on his face, slicing through the tendons in his exposed cheeks for a horrifying finale.”
Photo: Perkins and Douglas on-set.
Additional visual effects included twin effects for brothers Hal and Bill, both as children and adults.
“Osgood Perkins’ filming style led to slower camera movements that didn’t require complex and time-consuming motion control rigs that are typical in twinning-style shots, but we did use camera movement and Steadicams on some twinning shots, monitoring and temp-coming on-set to approve lineups, and solving final lineup and integration in comp,” says Douglas.
Other twinning shots were accomplished by classic face replacements, as well as judicious use of photo doubles. Twinning shots were composited by the teams at UFX Studios and CoSA VFX. The show was primarily composited in Nuke, with a very small handful of shots accomplished in After Effects. CG was created using Maya and Blender, with some render elements coming from realtime engines Unity and Unreal. The single full-CG shot in the film was the monkey-caused destruction of the town of Casco, ME. It was created and rendered in Unreal by CG supervisor Scott Penner and CG artist Daniel Langhjelm, with additional polish in comp.