Evil-looking windup toy monkey causes someone's gory "accidental" death every time it beats its toy drum. That's it, for an hour and a half. Every ten minutes somebody dies in an elaborate fashion that nonetheless lacks the ingenuity or suspense of the "Final Destination" (or even "Saw") movies because it's all played as a joke. Even that would be fine if the director really had a flair for jaunty black comedy--something like early Coen brothers--or spectacular bad-taste slapstick. But he doesn't, so this just comes off as one dumb gag after another, played out by characters who are all cartoonishly one-dimensional, so there's zero emotional stake in their fates.
I enjoyed at least some of Perkins' prior movies, but this reminded me that the weakest thing about Stephen King books and writing is when they're trying to be funny (think "Maximum Overdrive"), which is not his strong suit. It's better crafted than a lot of low-budget movies in a similar vein, but given that it's not particularly low-budget and involves some talented people, its ideas should be better than that of your average lowbrow gore comedy. I was very disappointed. If my expectations had been lower, I would have found it an okay throwaway movie--but even so, one that's neither particularly clever or scary, just sort of mildly amusing.
