According to the director, the decision to have the monkey bang a drum instead of cymbals was due to the rights to the cymbal-banging version being owned by The Walt Disney Company, as the toy had appeared as a character in Toy Story 3. The cymbal monkey was in Toy Story 3 in the first place because its director Lee Unkrich is a fan of Stephen King.
Based on a short story from Stephen King's 'Skeleton Crew'
Following Stephen King tradition, the majority of the movie is set in a town in Maine, USA.
Osgood Perkins revealed his approach to the material: "I took liberties like a motherf*cker. They [Atomic Monster] had a very serious script. Very serious. I felt it was too serious, and I told them: 'This doesn't work for me. The thing with this toy monkey is that the people around it all die in insane ways. So, I thought: Well, I'm an expert on that.' Both my parents died in insane, headline-making ways. I spent a lot of my life recovering from tragedy, feeling quite bad. It all seemed inherently unfair. You personalize the grief: 'Why is this happening to me?' But I'm older now and you realize this shit happens to everyone. Everyone dies. Sometimes in their sleep, sometimes in truly insane ways, like I experienced. But everyone dies. And I thought maybe the best way to approach that insane notion is with a smile."
There is a character referred to in the movie as "Torrance", alluding to the Torrance family in 'The Shining'.