Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again host a fundraiser for Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.
Today’s theme: Bleeding Skull!
Long before it got chopped up and repurposed as filler in Kenneth J. Berton’s Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders, The Devil’s Gift stood proudly on its own two hairy little feet as a bootleg version of U of M grad Steve King’s short story “The Monkey.” Is it a rip-off? Absolutely. Do I love it anyway? You know me so well.
The movie kicks off with a bang. An old lady named Elmira Johnson decides it’s a good idea to play with a Ouija board. Big mistake. The spirits get testy, manifest as a stuffed, red-eyed, cymbal-smashing primate and summon lightning to strike her house down. From there, single dad David Andrews is just trying to celebrate his kid Michael’s ninth birthday. What does girlfriend Susan buy the kid? Not a video game, not a bicycle, but a creepy-ass monkey toy from an antique store.
Thanks a lot, Susan.
The household plants instantly shrivel up, the family dog gets torched in a fire and poor David is stuck dealing with heavy-duty nightmares. Enter Adrienne, the local fortune teller, who warns David that demons love hanging out in innocuous objects, which explains why the monkey is bulletproof, fireproof and garbage-proof. Even after David tries to throw the little bastard away, little Michael goes dumpster diving to rescue his new best friend. Things spiral completely out of control when Susan gets fully possessed and tries to drown the kid.
Does David call the cops? Nope, he just kicks her out of the house like she tracked mud on the carpet.
With a protective necklace doing absolutely zero good, David tries to bury the monkey for good, but the toy refuses to stay dead. In classic low-budget style, the movie wraps up with a gloriously ambiguous finale: the monkey starts clashing its cymbals, a chime rings out, and boom—an explosion implies the entire family just got blown straight to hell.
This movie is also content to steal scenes from the cartoons “Balloon Land” and “The Sunshine Makers” and episodes of The Ultraman. Michael also gets some Star Wars toys for Christmas and has an E.T. poster. This is strangely wholesome and then gives you no small amount of attempted child murder and dreams of child death. It also cost about what The Monkey‘s bill for coffee was.
You can watch this on YouTube.
