O Presente do Demônio

"The Devil's Gift" is about a toy monkey that the mother has found in an old toy shop and bought for her son.No matter how the family tries to get rid of it,the monkey always comes back with deadly consequences.This film is strikingly similar to Stephen King's short story "The Monkey" about cymbal-banging monkey toy that is possessed by an evil spirit.Every time the monkey claps its little cymbals together somebody dies."The Devil's Gift" is so sweet and cheerful that you will want to vomit.The opening animated sequence is surprisingly clever,unfortunately the rest of the film is deadly dull and without any suspense or gore.One of the very worst horror movies from 80's.3 monkeys out of 10.

Susan (Vicki Saputo) buys a cymbal-playing toy monkey with glowing eyes at an antique store to give to her boyfriend's young son Micheal (Straun Robertson) for his birthday. It turns out to be possessed by a demon, which means the electricity goes off, the plants wilt and Charlie the goldfish and Sparkle the dog are goners. Eventually it possesses Susan which puts dad David (Bob Mendlesohn) on a quest to find out what's going on.

I think this was made by some Christian right-wing group to get back at the all the gory 80s slasher movies, because there's no violence, nudity or profanity. I can't think of a horror movie with more hugging, kissing, tickling, "knuckle sandwiches," back patting, good family values and platonic puppy-doggy lovey-dovey, and it's set in white bread middle class suburbia. David cheerfully tells his neighbor, "If there was a friend of the year award, you'd get it!" Even a psychic's home is littered with velvet paintings and statues of Jesus! Most of the running time is composed of the boring everyday events of boring everyday people, all set to bad elevator-style Muzak. It copies Stephen King's short story "The Monkey" and is pure torture from start to finish.

Why the hate? This is a perfectly fine horror 80's movie. It's cheesy with bland performances like every other mid-range 80's horror movie. AND it's got a creepy, cymbal playing monkey! What's creepier than that!? One review mention there was no swearing. So? It's about a family with a young boy. Are they really supposed to curse around him? As to a "Christian" bent, the guy wears a pentagon medallion which protects him, not a cross.

There are some tense moments which only come with good camera placement and editing. The final assault scene worked well and even though you could script it in your sleep, like a joke you love to hear, I gasped happily despite knowing the punchline.

This is *slightly* better than average.

The movie is about a demon-possessed toy monkey with cymbals on its hands. Every time it claps its cymbals, something dies. First plants, then it moves to bigger prey. The premise is actually pretty good. You may recognize this movie because it was shoe-horned into the much worse "Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders," which was featured once on Mystery Science Theater 3000. It was nice to see it as a standalone movie, which I didn't even realized existed. Granted, this movie could have been edited down to half its length and been better, but that can be said about most cheesy horror movies. I don't think it's quite as bad as a lot of people say. The acting and script are terrible, but the story as a whole isn't too bad. Sure it's bad and laughable, but If you enjoy B-horror movies, you'll get a kick out of it.

This film begins with a woman named "Elmira Johnson" (Olwen Morgan) sitting alone in her spacious house, attempting to summon a familiar spirit using her Ouija board. To her horror, instead of contacting a spirit she recognizes from the past, she accidentally summons a homicidal demon inhabiting a toy monkey that unleashes its full power to kill her. Not long after, a young man named "David Andrews" (Bob Mendelsohn) hosts a birthday party for his son, "Michael Andrews" (Struan Robertson). During the celebration, Michael opens a present from David's girlfriend, "Susan" (Vicki Saputo), which turns out to be the same toy monkey that caused chaos in Elmira's house--and it plans to do the same here. I won't reveal what happens next, but I'll say I've never found the idea of a toy monkey as an object of evil particularly horrifying. Quite the opposite. That said, I was initially skeptical about its use in this movie. However, I found the character "Pete" (Bruce Parry) to be the weakest part of the film, as the overall suspense kept it from falling apart completely. That is, until the awful ending, at least. Nevertheless, this wasn't a movie I particularly enjoyed, and I have rated it accordingly.