Revisiting ‘The Box’ 15 Years Later

While many works of Richard Matheson ended up on the small screen, the author was a giant when it came to genre. From post-apocalyptic monsters to gremlins on a plane, Matheson fathered a treasure trove of speculative stories that have since inspired countless other writers, including Stephen King. King said of the late Matheson: “[He] fired my imagination by placing his horrors not in European castles and Lovecraftian universes, but in American scenes I knew and could relate to.” And of all his homegrown writings, Matheson’s short story “Button, Button” may very well be his most approachable. For everyone can understand the allure of immediate wealth, even if that windfall comes with strings attached. Matheson, however, wove this universal desire into a unique and uncanny moral quandary — one where the offer is not only too good to be true, it also has fatal consequences.

Matheson’s unsettling tale has led to a few adaptations, although “Button, Button” itself seems to be derived from W. W. Jacobs’ “The Monkey’s Paw.” Unlike Jacobs’ story though, Matheson’s proposal of riches is known from the start, and the means to get it are addressed directly, if not ambiguous. The characters, couple Norma and Arthur Lewis, first receive a mysterious box in the 1970 short, and with it is a message announcing the visit from a Mr. Steward. It is upon the stranger’s arrival that Norma learns the function of the box’s contents: a button unit that, when triggered, awards the activator a hefty sum of money (the amount varies in other versions). The catch? Someone Norma does not know will die as soon as that button is pressed. After deliberating her predicament, both with herself and her rattled husband, Norma finally gives in to her curiosity.

The consequence of Norma’s choice is as anticipated; a person indeed dies not long after she presses the ominous button. The twist, however, is what makes Matheson’s story so closely related to “The Monkey’s Paw.” The victim of Norma’s decision is Arthur, her husband, and after expressing her shock and dismay to Mr. Steward, the messenger responds: “Do you really think you knew your husband?” This karmic conclusion makes “Button, Button” memorable, but subsequent adaptations are either less faithful or just entirely different.

Pictured: “Button, Button” from Playboy Magazine (June 1970).

The first media adaptation of “Button, Button” was “The Chinaman Button,” a ‘74 episode of CBS Radio Mystery Theater. In this version, one written for the radio program by Henry Slesar, there is not a hint of otherworldliness about the offer or its proctor. Instead, two ordinary men make a wager; they debate whether or not another man, Walter, would press the theoretical and eponymous device. The orchestrator of the scheme, Phil, goes the extra distance to win the bet and influence the mark’s decision. It is only when Walter’s wife announces yet another pregnancy does he submit himself to Phil’s disturbing invitation. The whole ruse is then turned on Phil, who Walter murders so he would not have to share their prize. Little does he know…

“Button, Button” was first published in Playboy Magazine, some years after Matheson’s time with The Twilight Zone. In 1986 though, the (first) revival of the anthology series featured an adaptation written by Matheson and directed by Peter Medak. Apparently, the writer was so displeased with how the episode turned out that he credited himself as Logan Swanson, the same nom de plume used for The Last Man on Earth. Matheson disapproved of this new and different ending where both Norma and Arthur (Mare Winningham, Brad Davis) survive after crossing paths with Mr. Steward (Basil Hoffman). What might have been misinterpreted as anticlimactic is more clever than first realized. There is more to chew on as Mr. Steward suggests that Norma or Arthur could, one day, become the anonymous victim in someone else’s button dilemma.

When asked where the idea for “Button, Button” came from, Matheson cited his wife, Ruth Ann. Her college class raised the hypothetical question, would you walk down New York’s Broadway naked if it led to world peace? The author said his story also entailed “a sacrifice of human dignity in exchange for a specific goal.” Of course, Matheson acknowledged his goal was “nothing anywhere near as worthy as world peace.” That similar sort of imagination courses through the most commercial adaptation of Matheson’s work: The Box. Yet unlike the Twilight Zone iteration, Matheson did not pen the screenplay; Donnie Darko filmmaker Richard Kelly used “Button, Button” as a launchpad for his own eager story about an unsuspecting couple and the most difficult decision of their lives.

Pictured: Mare Winningham and Brad Davis respectively as Norma and Arthur in “Button Button” (1986) from The Twilight Zone.

Motivated by 1970s paranoiac horrors and thrillers, Kelly’s period piece made a considerable effort to stoke the characters’ suspicions — he pushed their buttons — as well as confirm them. And dropping Cameron Diaz and James Marsden in a less cynical or technologically advanced time ensured their versions of Norma and Arthur weren’t so vulnerable to avarice, or able to investigate their Mr. Steward (Frank Langella). Ultimately, the simpler setting of The Box makes its big story come across as even bigger.

Kelly was still riding the high of his debut, Donnie Darko, when he made The Box. The goodwill toward that cult coming-of-ager was, evidently, great enough to look past the ill-received Southland Tales. However, as mainstream and accessible as Kelly tried to make his third directed movie, the general response was negative. Certain aspects of the movie were “not easy for people to digest,” Kelly said in a retrospective interview. While it is true that The Box is not the simplest story to take in and then break down, parts do play better in repeat viewings, particularly the personal element in Kelly’s script.

“Button, Button” is quite short, so story padding was as necessary as it was inevitable. This led to Kelly turning to his own childhood when fleshing out Norma and Arthur. The Lewises were modeled after his parents; Kelly’s father worked for NASA, and his mother was a teacher with a physical disability. So if viewers can only connect to one thing in The Box, it would be its emotional center. The protagonists feel real and sympathetic. Drawing from his own family life, the filmmaker gave his characters the complexity they lacked in past takes, and the appeal needed to make their love hurt once everything was over and done with.

Where The Box likely lost its audience is the severe explanation of the button unit. Once the gist of Matheson’s story is carried out in the movie’s first act, Kelly went off into the bizarre narrative territory that intrigued some and alienated others. The deep science-fiction angle saps the sinister quality of the setup, leaving viewers to then witness a surreal journey topped off with a tragic finish. The movie was rated PG-13, so it harbors no extreme frights. Nevertheless, its ending is devastating in ways that require no bloodshed.

Trying to demystify “Button, Button” would appear unwise, seeing as the story’s ambiguity is what makes it effective in the first place. On the other hand, The Box‘s overstated approach is enticingly strange; Richard Kelly’s expansion of Matheson’s concept is both out-there and fascinating. And hopefully, all these years later, this ambitious and often sentimental offshoot is better appreciated rather than simply written off as a misguided adaptation.