According to the director, the choice to have the monkey beat a drum rather than clash cymbals was driven by the fact that the rights to the cymbal‑banging version belonged to The Walt Disney Company, as the toy had featured as a character in Toy Story 3. The cymbal monkey was included in Toy Story 3 in the first place because that film’s director, Lee Unkrich, is a fan of Stephen King.
At the babysitter's funeral, it is revealed that her name is Annie Wilkes. This is the same name as the character played by Kathy Bates in Misery (1990), a work also by Stephen King, who wrote the short story on which this film is based.
Adapted from a short story in Stephen King's anthology 'Skeleton Crew'.
At the end of the film, Bill is killed by the bowling ball with which Hal had fantasised about killing him when he was a child.
In keeping with Stephen King's tradition, most of the film is set in a town in Maine, United States.
Osgood Perkins described his method for handling the material: "I took liberties like a motherf*cker. They [Atomic Monster] arrived with a very serious script. Extremely serious. I felt it was too grave, and I told them: 'This doesn't work for me. The thing about this toy monkey is that everyone around it dies in wildly insane ways. So I thought: well, that's my expertise.' Both my parents died in shocking, headline-grabbing circumstances. I spent a large part of my life trying to recover from those tragedies, feeling awful. It always felt inherently unfair. You personalise the grief: 'Why is this happening to me?' But I'm older now and I realise these awful things happen to everyone. Everyone dies. Sometimes peacefully in their sleep, sometimes in truly mad ways, as I experienced. But everyone dies. And I figured perhaps the best way to deal with that madness is with a smile."
One of the characters in the film is named "Torrance", a clear nod to the Torrance family in 'The Shining'.
The melody The Monkey performs is "I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside".
Osgood Perkins opted to introduce comic elements to the film because he felt they were more appropriate for a story centred on a toy, and he wanted to set The Monkey apart from darker horror films about possessed toys. Perkins added that the comedy deliberately eschews subtlety and relies on excessive gore to lampoon the absurdity, futility and randomness of death.
The hotel sign "No food after midnight" is a nod to the 1984 film Gremlins.
From the very start of the film, characters maintain that the Monkey should not be referred to as a toy. Near the end, Bill calls it a toy, foreshadowing his death when he is decapitated by a bowling ball. However, Hal also calls the monkey a toy and survives.
In Stephen King’s short story, many of the character names and the town name remain the same, but the plot and mood are significantly different. The tale is treated seriously: Hal & Bill are not twins but brothers with several years between them, and Hal is a married father of two (Dennis & Petey). The body count is at least 10: Father (a merchant mariner who vanished); Mum (same cause); Uncle Will; Aunt Ida; Johnny McCabe (Hal’s friend); Beulah McCaffery (the childminder); Charlie Silverman (Bill’s friend); a junk man; the dog Daisy; Ida’s cat; plus, according to the monkey, “many more.”
Osgood Perkins: plays the part of Uncle Chip.
The only person whom the monkey causes to die a "natural" death is Lois, who succumbs to a brain aneurysm. All the other victims perish in accidents or by violent means.
The father of the two protagonists went out to buy cigarettes one day and never returned — the same thing happened to the father of Stephen King, the author of the story.
At 49:08, the poster for "Goosebumps (1995)" can be seen; it is a children's horror anthology television series adapted from R. L. Stine's best-selling book series of the same name.
The babysitter Annie's full name is eventually disclosed as Annie Wilkes, a nod to the character from Misery — the film adaptation of which saw Kathy Bates portray the character of the same name. It is one of several references to other works by King sprinkled throughout the film.
Tatiana Maslany, who plays Lois, and Tess Degenstein, who plays Barbara, are close friends off-screen.
