Stephen King’s 1980 short story "The Monkey" is getting renewed attention. Local filmmaker Spencer Sherry got the rights to adapt the short story in 2021 and released an hour-length feature in 2023. Three days after Sherry released his film, a Hollywood version was announced, directed by Osgood Perkins. In the original story, a cymbal-banging toy monkey owned by character Hal Shelburn brings death and misfortune to those around him. Decades later, the monkey reappears, causing Hal to fear for his safety. Sherry’s adaptation follows a similar storyline.
On Saturday, March 1st at noon, Scene One Cinemas at the Wilton Mall is screening a double-feature with both film versions of "The Monkey."
WAMC's Samantha Simmons sat down with Sherry ahead of today's event, comparing both adaptations of King’s story.
Following a double feature of Sherry’s film and the newly released Hollywood adaptation directed by Osgood Perkins, a party celebrating the movies will take place at Putnam Place in Saratoga Springs at 8 p.m..
So, the original thing that I was eyeing was this program called The Dollar Baby Program that Stephen King's been doing for a very long time, where you can adapt some of his short stories into short films for free. And I was reading a lot of his short stories at the time, and came across “The Monkey,” and really loved it. Selfishly I thought it would be cheaper to make as the monster is just a toy I can find online for 75 bucks, as well as the story, it's more of a drama than it is a traditional just scary, evil horror gore fest, like I believe the new one is actually so yeah, so I just wanted to take a stab at it, and turns out the rights weren't available through that program, and so I just found an agent's number and pleaded with them until they gave it to me. So, yeah, so it ended up being even, actually, the movie itself is a little bit longer form. Ended up being 60 minutes, which I think technically is feature length. But yeah.
It was three days after you released yours that you got word that a Hollywood version of the film was coming out. What was your reaction to that?
That was a weird day, for sure. I didn't really know what to make of it. My whole campaign and angle with making the film had been that I was the first person to ever adapt the Stephen King story, which is still true, which is nice. But I just didn't, I didn't know what it meant for it. I mean, they're, they're the biggest horror people in the in the country right now. James Wan with “The Conjuring,” Osgood Perkins just came off of the “Long Legs” victory, and so, so, yeah, so it was really, it was really weird. And I kind of sat on it for a couple hours and talked to some people and then realize that it would do more good things for my film than bad. So now it's, you know, talking. Now I can get people to see two different adaptations. And luckily, they're two very different adaptations, I get the feeling is the case. So yeah, so I've been kind of writing the coattails a little bit, and all the buzz about that movie. Every time they drop an article or the trailer comes out, my stuff gets a lot of views as well. So, it's been, it's been symbiotic in that way, I think so.
The Hollywood version came out just a few weeks ago. Have you seen it yet?
I have not seen it. It will be the first time I see it when I do my double feature today.
Have you seen any clips of it or heard anything about it?
Yeah, I've been keeping up with the trailers. I try to share some of their stuff to get people excited for the experience that I'm curating here. But everything I've heard about it sounds extremely different. They're leaning into the comedy. They're leaning into the gore. They're it's a kind of just turn your brain off and watch a wild, bloody ride type film. And mine is mine's significantly different in theme and tone than that.
So, let's talk about that. What makes it different than the Hollywood one?
I think, and again, I haven't seen the Hollywood version, but mine, I wanted to focus more on the idea that good horror movies, and I don't even describe mine as a horror really, I describe it as a creepy drama. The toy, every time it claps at symbols, it brings death. But it's kind of ambiguous how that happens, and so I wanted to look at it through the lens of, well, what are these people going through in their lives that this looming and anxiety is kind of hanging over them, and what are they actually worried about? And I took that away from the original short story, that this is the it feels more like it's the inevitable thing, whether it's death, whether it's, you know, loss, whatever it might be. And so, I wanted to really work that theme heavily into my story. So, the monkey in my movie only appears a couple times on screen, and it sounds like the new one. It's constantly throughout the whole thing, killing people in crazy ways. But yeah, I wanted to focus on the characters themselves and how the how their decision making and their lives and emotions are impacted by the quote, unquote monster, rather than, rather than leaning into just the slasher genre,
Did you grow up a Stephen King fan?
I did. I did. We would me and some of my friends would rent his books from the library and stay up late independently reading them. I remember specifically reading “Salem's Lot” and having to shut the curtain on my window at the time I was reading it at when I went to bed, because the idea of a little vampire boy floating outside the window was too terrifying. But, yeah, but there were, there was definitely a string of Stephen King, a fad that went through my childhood reading career.
So, in the last couple of years, since you released it, is there anything you would have changed when you watch it back?
There's definitely, there's little moments. I don't think there's anything particularly big. I think that I'm really happy with the story. I'm so happy with the cast and crew and how and how it looks and sounds. There's, you know, I Ian, I know when the little moments are coming in this, I can see some scenes, but for the most part, I'm really proud of it. It's the first thing that I ever did. It's my first film, and it was a very, very large swing for first film. And a lot of the feedback that I get from people in the industry or professionals is that they can't believe the production value for, for what it for a little independent film like that with a $50,000 budget. So, so yeah, I'm, I'm really happy with it. I wouldn't, I wouldn't change too much. I might. I might pull out a couple yucky, yucky lines of dialog that I let my actor say, but other than, but that's also kind of Stephen King.
When I listen back to things I wrote, I feel the same way. I'm like, ‘why did I write it like that? That's the worst thing I've ever heard.’
Probably just dopey dad line that I put in. But it is true that Stephen King, I mean, his books are, his characters are just filled with these weird little witticisms and adages and things like that. So, I think it's consistent. But I also thought it was important in adapting the Stephen King thing to know what to maybe lean away from and what might not work for what I was trying to do, while also leaning heavily into the stuff that really makes his books resonate with people.
So, what was the creative process behind getting the money together, getting the actors together, getting the scenes put together?
Sure, so I wrote the thing, thinking that I was going to be able to do The Dollar Baby Program with it. And so I spent two months kind of developing the script and then when I found out that I wasn't eligible for the program, I just sat on it for a while, but I kept coming back to it because I really liked what I had come up with. And so, after I fan angled a yes from them, and I got the rights, I did an Indiegogo, and I just tried to generate as much fun interest as possible, and we really tried to find ways to connect people to the work and to the experience. And if you're if you're donating money to this, you're really, I'm offering you something, whether it's, you know, memorabilia, a page of the script, or an experience, something personal, coming little Polaroids that we take on set on the day or producer credits or things like that. And so, yeah, we ended up raising about half the budget in two months on Indiegogo. And then from there, just the level of awareness that we tried to raise and get the community really engaged and involved with it, found a couple other people that were willing to make up the rest of it, and we did some fundraisers too. Shout out to the funny bone in Albany, who we did. We've done a couple fun shows there where we just invite as many people to come as possible, and they'll give us a cut of the tickets, which was very, very nice.
So, for today's screening, it's a double feature, showing your short film in the Hollywood version the full length film. How did you organize that?
Pretty easily, because the Hollywood version that we're going to see that's just a normal it's out. So, you know, I have nothing to do with the tickets of that. I just tell people, hey, the two. O'clock one's the one we're all going to see. And Joe masher, who owns Scene One Entertainment, who also recently took over the Spectrum and has been kind of reviving that I had worked with him a couple months ago on a film showcase, kind of like a mini–film festival in Saratoga that we put together, and he very graciously and generously let us do it at his place, in will mall, in the biggest Theater, which is where we're going to be this time we're going to be in the ‘big scene,’ which, like 250-seat theater. It's huge. And so, after that festival went well, he texted me and was like, Alright, are we doing the monkey or two or what? What's going on? So, so we're so I was like, alright, I'll just, will pick a time and just run them back-to-back so you and but they're separate that because there's such different movies, I wanted to give people the option to opt in or out of either one. So, you can, you can go see mine at noon, and then at 2pm you just buy a ticket at the box office, and we'll all go over and you get to watch me watch it for the first time, if that, if that tickles you.
And for the showing of yours, that is no cost for the ticket. So, I guess free. Have you made any money off any streams you've done of this so far?
Zero, and that's part of the contract. So, the contract that I have with King is I got the rights for free, but they're noncommercial, so I can't profit off of anything, and they're nonexclusive. So, any money that I clearly, they're nonexclusive because somebody else is making the movie now. But any money that I raised for the film, and we did do that, we did merch, we would do certain things, but that all had to go into production in some way. So now that the movie is done, every screening of the film has been free across the board, no matter whether it was at we did one of the Malta Drive-in, which was awesome. Other film festivals, we went up to Maine and brought it up to Stephen King's favorite movie theater. So, yeah, so that's, that's a really, I mean, obviously a bummer to not make money off of, you know, three years of work in your life, but it's the amount, a lot of what I've got out of it has been much, much better than that, whether it's connections in the community or other films or the filmmakers. And so, it's nice that I can keep it it's just clean that way to say, no, you never will have to pay to see this movie. So, but another part of that caveat of the contract is I can't put it publicly online anywhere at any given time. I can put a trailer up, but you'd have to come right to me if you want to. You want to see it somehow.
And so, what are you doing now?
So now, after our wild dance party tonight that we're throwing in celebration of this kind of weird cinematic phenomenon we are going I am shopping around another short film that I produced called anomaly, that we shot in the Cohoes Music Hall a couple years ago, so that my closest friend, Ryan Jenkins, wrote and directed that, and he's got another Spanish language folk Horror short that we're going to be shooting in April. It sounds like we might be in Cohoes again. So yeah, so just getting that, that little production off the ground and starting to cast that.
Local filmmaker Spencer Sherry discussing his film adaptation of Stephen King’s ‘The Monkey.’ Following a double feature of Sherry’s film and the newly released Hollywood adaptation directed by Osgood Perkins, a party celebrating the movies will take place at Putnam Place in Saratoga Springs at 8 p.m.
