What if I instructed you Oz Perkins’ The Monkey is not the primary to adapt Stephen King’s brief story? While Neon’s 2025 goreganza is the authorised and licensed adaptation, there is a lesser-known 80s horror film with eerie similarities to King’s brief story “The Monkey.” Kenneth J. Berton’s The Devil’s Gift was launched in 1984, 4 years after King’s bite-sized story was revealed in Gallery journal. For those that’ve learn King’s fiction, it is exhausting to look at The Devil’s Gift and ignore comparisons to “The Monkey” regardless of the manufacturing by no means acknowledging King in any method.
Let’s begin with the resemblances, that are obtrusive. In King’s story and Berton’s movie, a cymbal-banging monkey causes fatalities after it clangs. They’re additionally supernatural conditions intertwined with Death’s plans. There are murderous doll motion pictures aplenty, and you’ll hint cymbal-banging monkey toys again to 1932’s Hoppo the Waltzing Monkey—however King’s imaginative mix of The Twilight Zone and Final Destination is exclusive. You cannot ignore how The Devil’s Gift borrows King’s particular focus and narrative mechanisms.
Berton and the movie’s two credited co-writers (José Vergelin and Hayden O’Hara) eek previous plagiarism complaints based mostly on a couple of tweaks. Kings’ The Monkey options Hal’s household discovering the monkey in a Ralston-Purina field, the place The Devil’s Gift suggests its monkey has been possessed because of a Ouija board. This results in a extra demonic model of the killer monkey versus King’s, which is a stand-in for Death—or no less than Death’s proper hand. Also, King’s time-jumpy story follows brothers Hal and Bill (however primarily Hal), whereas The Devil’s Gift makes actor Bob Mendelsohn’s father determine, David Andrews, the central character. Finally, within the ‘84 movie, you possibly can survive Mr. Monkey’s impending doom for those who cease his clattering or escape its lure, not like King’s merciless finality.
The swapability of pawn outlets and vintage shops hyperlinks Perkins’ The Monkey and Berton’s The Devil’s Gift. It’s the scene of the primary crime (we see) in The Monkey, the place Hal and Bill’s delinquent father tries to promote his beady-eyed monkey. But in The Devil’s Gift, it is the place David’s present companion Susan (Vicki Saputo) buys a cheeky monkey percussionist for David’s son, Micahel (Struan Robertson). Both places are incessantly the cornerstone of tales a couple of malevolent trinket. King stays targeted on familial hand-me-downs and inescapable curses, however when constructing a case that connects The Devil’s Gift and “The Monkey,” Perkins’ adaptation solely provides gas to the hearth.
If you hadn’t learn King’s story, you would not assume twice after watching Vestron Video’s VHS launch within the 80s. But with Perkins’ direct adaptation (and growth to function size) popping out this weekend, The Devil’s Gift’s cowl is perhaps blown. It’s a weird idea, virtually too weird to be replicated. This is not 1997’s conundrum of Volcano and Dante’s Peak hitting theaters solely months aside—volcanos are customary pure catastrophe fare. We’re speaking about cymbal-banging, drum-beating monkeys performing as Angels of Death.
About the monkey itself, King writes: “It grinned at him with its murky amber eyes, doll’s eyes, stuffed with fool glee, its brass cymbals poised as if to strike up a march for some band from hell.” Is it a coincidence that Berton retains choosing close-up photographs of the monkey’s deviant grin, permitting shiny amber eyes to glisten? Even funnier is how Perkins chooses to trash the normal cymbal monkey prototype acknowledged by popular culture in favor of a drum. The Monkey, the direct adaption of King’s “The Monkey,” opts to distinguish the place The Devil’s Gift stays with the frequent brass discs. Imitation is the sincerest type of flattery, they are saying.
The Devil’s Gift’s legacy is far stranger than probably (in all probability) ripping off Stephen King. If you are a Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan, you’ll have already seen The Devil’s Gift—or, extra appropriately, elements of The Devil’s Gift. Berton would direct a movie in 1996 titled Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders, that includes Ernest Borgnine “as a grandfather telling his grandson a narrative concerning the wizard Merlin opening up a retailer within the modern-day United States.” It’s an anthology with two segments, however as an alternative of capturing a model new second story, Berton recycled The Devil’s Gift. He cleaved out story chunks, added a couple of sequences the place Merlin chases the monkey toy, and voilà! You’ve bought the again half of some oddball fantasy flick the place Merlin ruins individuals’s lives along with his magical creations.
MST3K would finally dedicate an episode to Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders, the place Merlin’s interference would taint Berton’s butchered model of The Devil’s Gift. Instead of a Ouija board unleashing evils highly effective sufficient to explode a home, doofy criminals steal The Monkey, and that is the way it results in a small city’s pawn store. None of the start exposition issues, nor “boring” scenes between the monkey’s horrors. What’s left of The Devil’s Gift is a deceased goldfish, a lifeless canine (boo, R.I.P. Sparkles), and David’s frantic try to discard his son’s devilish birthday reward earlier than it kills once more.
The Merlin Cut of The Devil’s Gift is prime MST3K fodder. Berton’s full-length model of The Devil’s Gift from 1984 by no means made waves, however no less than tried some semblance of storytelling. Oh, you changed what little coherent plot that existed with Merlin working round America, making an attempt to gather misfit objects? Yeah, the MST3K crew had a discipline day between “Rock and Roll Martian” and a fortune teller’s “Bethagram” necklace (no matter which means, nevertheless it seems like a knock-off sheriff’s star). Berton’s try at double-dipping backfires, particularly contemplating how the unique movie no less than dared to finish issues on a bleak-as-heck be aware. Merlin’s model wraps on a cutesy little button-up the place the whole lot’s simply dandy.
So I assume there are technically two unofficial motion pictures that beat Perkins’ The Monkey to the punch? And one entails Merlin. And they’re each technically the identical film. Ish. Kinda?
As of right now, there aren’t any definitive solutions as as to if The Devil’s Gift wished to be an adaptation of “The Monkey” or not. It’s straightforward to invest about unmissable influences, and plenty of have (many, on this case, being relative to the only a few individuals who have seen the movie). King was by no means concerned, nor was the property cited, and “The Monkey” wasn’t even revealed outdoors Gallery pages till 1985’s Skeleton Crew—however c’mon. The empirical proof is in every single place. People acknowledge Child’s Play as one of many killer doll subgenre’s crowning achievements, however even its imitators discovered methods round outright duplication. Why not make your figurine an elephant as an alternative of maintaining it a monkey and highlighting the elephant within the room?
The Devil’s Gift is a kind of video retailer leases from the ‘80s value testing for its audacity alone. It’s not fooling anybody (re: The Monkey), which is suspiciously charming. Although, it is exhausting to not advocate MST3K’s Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders episode as an alternative. Who wants all that pesky exposition, infinite dad chores, and random costumed creatures? If all you need are the down-and-dirty highlights of this Stephen King imposter, belief in Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot. It’s the primer for Perkins’ The Monkey you by no means knew existed—separated at beginning however tethered nonetheless.
