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Title: The Devil's Gift (1984) Post by: claws on November 27, 2015, 02:07:10 AM I always had an odd fondness for this movie. I haven't seen since video rental days so I watched this last night on youtube.
It is sort of amateur-ambitious, wants to be family friendly and the low budget gives it a filmed-in-your-own-backyard feeling. The director obviously went for a Poltergeist (1982) kind of set up or setting, as in sunny suburbia, kids riding big wheels, friendly comic relief neighbor, cartoons on TV, feeding french toast to the dog at breakfast, E.T. posters on the wall etc. The plot is simple: boy gets cursed toy monkey for his birthday from the girlfriend of his single father doing his best "Mr. Mom". Monkey causes all sorts of supernatural shenanigans, girlfriends gets possessed, father hires fortune teller to exorcise his house. All this isn't very good and the running time of 112 minutes is pushing it. Acting wasn't too bad actually, and the opening miniature setting is very atmospheric, plus minor bonus points for creepy toy monkey. Not highly recommended but if you have one of those boring nights with nothing to watch you might as well search for this on youtube. Title: Re: The Devil's Gift (1984) Post by: akiratubo on November 27, 2015, 05:43:29 PM I think this is an adaptation of a Stephen King story. It was also stolen, edited for time, and used as a segment of an MST3K subject called "Merlin's Mystical Store of Wonders" or somesuch.
Title: Re: The Devil's Gift (1984) Post by: claws on November 28, 2015, 04:34:16 AM I've read about the "Merlin" version but never seen. According to wiki it was the Devil's Gift director himself who edited the movie as a segment for his Merlin feature. I also read the Merlin version of Devil's Gift is missing the original final six minutes ending, which is kind of dark and downbeat.
Other than that I was stunned they tried to market The Devil's Gift as a Gremlins clone when it was first released to VHS :bouncegiggle: |