Some of the best adaptations of Stephen King’s work come from his short fiction. Two novellas from King’s 1982 collection, Different Seasons, yielded the Oscar-nominated films Stand by Me (1986) and The Shawshank Redemption (1994).Night Shift, from 1978, included “Children of the Corn,” which inspired a number of fun, if corny, movies, including a wild remake two years ago. “The Mist,” a novella from 1985’s Skeleton Crew, became a well-regarded horror film in 2007; now, writer-director Osgood Perkins brings a different tale from the same collection to the screen: The Monkey, which premieres in theaters on Feb. 21.

King’s original story is a simple one—the sort that used to grace the pages of lively ’50s horror comics. A software engineer, Hal Shelburn, recounts how he discovered a mysterious wind-up toy monkey in his family’s closet when he was 8. That night, the seemingly broken doll spontaneously clanged its cymbals together, and the next day, Hal discovered that his beloved babysitter was murdered in a shooting. A year and a half later, the toy beat its cymbals again, and the best friend of Hal’s brother, Bill, was struck and killed by a car. Sometime later, Hal proactively turned the toy’s key, setting off another round of clangs—which apparently caused his mother to die instantaneously from a brain embolism. More deaths followed, and young Hal tried to rid himself of the toy with no success, until he finally tossed it into a dry well. But more than two decades later, the adult Hal’s son finds the monkey in their closet—and now Hal knows he must find a way to rid the world of the murderous mechanism once and for all.

The film’s basic plot is similar but changes some key details—the grotesque monkey toy beats a drum, for instance—and expands on the original in several ways. The brothers, Hal and Bill, are now identical twins (skillfully played by Christian Convery as children and The White Lotus’ Theo James as adults), and the narrative’s body count is much, much higher. The movie is also considerably more gruesome; suffice it to say that more than one person explodes, and a fair number are beheaded. Indeed, The Monkey, particularly in its early stages, is almost carnivalesque in its carnage, which is frequently played for laughs; the aftermath of one character’s demise is compared, in dialogue, to cherry-pie filling, and at another point, the adult Hal comically recoils from flying body parts (“What is that, a leg?”). It’s gory comedy-horror of a high order, but with almost none of the ice-cold atmosphere of Perkins’ previous films, such as last year’s serial-killer chiller Longlegs, the devilish The Blackcoat’s Daughter (2015), or the quiet ghost story I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House (2016). Some of this movie’s cameos are operatically pitched, as well, such as Elijah Wood as a loathsome life coach, and Severance’s Adam Scott as a flamethrower-wielding dad in a bizarre prologue.

Things are less madcap in the movie’s final scenes, though, as Hal comes to grips with his relationship with his disturbed sibling and tries to learn a lesson from the very real grief they’ve experienced; more than anything, he wants to find meaning in the meaninglessness. Consider the fact that director/screenwriter Perkins lost his father, actor Anthony Perkins, to AIDS-related illness when he was just a teenager, and later lost his mother, actor Berry Berenson, in the 9/11 attacks. Navigating a way through such grief seems unimaginable, but Perkins could be relaying some hard-won wisdom in this film—most affectingly in his portrayal of Hal and Bill’s harried but clear-eyed mother, played by the great Tatiana Maslany of Orphan Black fame.

The movie would make a fine double feature with Spontaneous, the excellent but underseen 2020 film adaptation of Aaron Starmer’s Kirkus-starred YA novel. Like The Monkey, it features many unexpected and horrific deaths, related with a tone that eventually downshifts from wacky to poignant. The overarching message of both films is eerily similar, and while it may not be a happy lesson to learn, it’s not an altogether sad one, either—and, for some viewers, it may be an unexpected revelation.

David Rapp is the senior Indie editor.