More kids, less backstory: The differences between the film and the short story of ‘The Monkey’

Stephen King’s story “The Monkey” is a film from Osgood Perkins. Perkins’ adaptation is a brilliant take on the short story. But it is very different from King’s work, which is in the short story collection called Skeleton Crew.

The differences between King’s work and Perkins’ take on the story are vastly different, comparing them the only way to really explain just how the changes work for Perkins’ story vs. what King wrote back in 1980. Perkins took liberties with the idea of the short story and honestly it does make it a more fleshed out an appealing story.

But when I say they are different from one another, I mean it. They are so incredibly different that they feel like two separate takes on a similar idea. Which isn’t a bad thing. It’s a short story, you have more freedom to explore the themes there in a filmed adaptation.

So let’s explain what exactly makes King’s “The Monkey” different from Perkins’ The Monkey by breaking down the plot of both.

The short story

Hal Shelburn, his wife Terry, and their two sons Dennis and Petey go back to Casco, Maine to clear out the house of his Aunt Ida and Uncle Will. We learn through the story that Hal’s older brother Bill’s family is also there but it is Hal’s burden to bury when he discovers a toy monkey that he had as a child. Hal believes the monkey has an evil power: Wind it up and someone dies.

Through Hal’s memories, we learn that his friends died from the toy, maybe his father, he blames the monkey for the death of a beloved dog and so on and so forth. The return of the monkey into Hal’s life turns him into a jerk to his family. He’s rude to his wife and yelling at Dennis but it is Petey’s admittance that he doesn’t like the monkey that allows Hal to make moves to get rid of it for “good.”

Hal and Petey take the monkey back to Aunt Ida and Uncle Will’s home and Hal remembers a story from Uncle Will about the depth of Crystal Lake. Taking a boat out, Hal goes alone to throw the monkey (who has escaped a well in the past) overboard.

Despite the monkey trying to destroy Hal’s boat before he can make it to shore, Hal succeeds and makes it back to Petey before the monkey can claim him as a victim. The same cannot be said for the fish in the lake.

The film

Perkins’ The Monkey is very different. We meet Pete Shelburn (Adam Scott) covered in blood in a pilot’s outfit trying to sell a monkey to a pawn shop. When the owner calls it a toy, he quickly responds that it is not one and to “never call it” a toy. The monkey itself is activated, playing a sinister song and when his drumming ends, so does the life of the owner of the pawn shop.

That’s our first introduction to The Monkey. So far, not that different but then things quickly shift. Pete did say that he took it home to his boys who didn’t like it, which is part of the King short story, but in Perkins’ version, Bill and Hal are twins. The younger twins are played by Christian Convery and the older versions of the brothers are played by Theo James.

Young Bill and Hal are not close. Their mother Lois (Tatiana Maslany) tries to be everything for them but it isn’t enough to change Bill. He is aggressive, rude to Hal, and not willing to change his reactions to his “younger” brother. Things take a turn when the two find the monkey in a closet filled with their father’s belongings.

Hal winds it up and nothing happens. But when the monkey is suddenly activated, it results in the death of their babysitter. In a moment of anger later in the movie, Hal uses the monkey with a clear intention: Kill Bill.

It doesn’t work and instead, Lois is a victim. Somehow, the monkey survives Hal’s brutal chopping up of it and a brotherly rivalry is born. More deaths, more twists, and Hal’s estranged son Petey (Colin O’Brien) leads us to the monkey’s full power and blood craving ways. We end the movie with no real finality to the monkey itself, never knowing what it will do next.

A good adaptation does have to retell the same story

Now, looking at the two pieces of work, they are vastly different. “The Monkey” doesn’t really get to have the fleshed out relationship between the brothers and we don’t understand the monkey’s tricks and ways as well as we do in Perkins’ The Monkey. But King’s short story is eerie in that unknowing nature. Perkins’ takes a more comical approach to the absurd idea.

The death’s in “The Monkey” feel a little more tame. Easy explained away, justified, or ignored completely. Perkins’ made the “accidents” that claimed the monkey’s victims so outrageous that Hal and Bill could not ignore the reality before them.

But with all the differences between the two, I think it is a good thing that Perkins’ take on the story is so different. It has darker themes of fatherhood, family trauma, and revenge that the short story does not. The Monkey allows its characters to grow and Hal’s fear is a little more understandable since he does know exactly how this game works.

I almost wish other King adaptations would have the same bravery that Perkins’ does. Many are too faithful to the original text and we see the same stories repeated time and time again but this take on The Monkey is new and fresh and a fun comparison piece to the 1980 short story.