Clevercell Very disappointing...

Onlinewsma Absolutely Brilliant!

Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

Janis One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

mark.waltz If there was ever an award for "worst ensemble", this film would have won that prize for 1932. Everybody speaks as if they are reciting a dictionary filled with words they can't pronounce, as if the director was timing each of their lines to reach a certain point When the fastest speaker is "Sleep n' Eat" (aka Willie Best), you know that the film is moving along slower than a snail in a swamp. Had everybody spoken their lines at a normal speed, the film would have been 20 minutes shorter than its hour long running time.This "old dark house" movie utilizes elements already old hat in talkie horror films (an invalid patriarch, a heroine in peril, sinister servants, even a gorilla living in the basement), and you just know that a hair-covered hand is going to pop out of a wall to grab the heroine as she sleeps. A violin playing shadow will instantly make you think of Cloris Leachman in Frau Brucher in "Young Frankenstein".Mischa Auer can't make up his mind whether his character is a slow-witted servant or sinister red herring. He takes the wacko that Dwight Frye played in "Dracula" to a new level of ridiculousness. Vera Reynolds' heroine is so dull and the dialog so non-campy and the identity of the perpetrator so obvious that you will figure it all out within the first 10 minutes of the film.

tenchagorda Sorry for my bad English :(This movie wants to be some many things at the time, and fails in every aspect, tries to be as Dracula or Frankenstein, tries to be a detective movie, a Gothic tale, a suspenseful movie ad scary, but none of this ones works, first the plot is ridiculous, a group of people stay in a old dark house to read the will of a relative and then strange things began to happen they all think is the ape of the dead relative, in the end the ape is controlled by three of the people to kill the others and stay with the money, which is ridiculous, so the story doesn't work and is rejected by major studios, but they still want to make the movie, so they make it independent, plus the develop of the script also has some plot holes and things that just don't make sense like the part the fiancée of the leading girl starts asking questions like a detective to a guy just because he found his cigarette, or the leading girl that screams the whole movie to take her out of the house, but they don't even try to get out, after all what just happened, or again the leading girl, screaming because she found a corpse in her bed, and just minutes later she sleeps in the same place the body was found, come on all this is ridiculous and i am not telling everything.From that we get the second point, the low-budget, you can see the movie is obviously cheap, because of the special effects, the setting and the actors, the killer hand of the monkey doesn't even look like the real monkey, it makes no sense, the setting tries to be Gothic and creepy but it is not, and the acting is laughable, the leading girl is always hysterical and in tow seconds she is smiling or laughing, Hans tries to be creepy, but it ends being laughable, and its a little bit racist, the only black character in the movie is the one with no intelligence. In the end its a bad low-budget movie that tries to be like Dracula or Frankenstain, this movie is just too simple, if you want to see a real Gothic old dark house movie go watch The Old Dark House, the 1932 version, directed by James Whale.5.1/10

wes-connors "A woman and her boyfriend return to her ancestral home for the reading of her father's will. They arrive at the old mansion, during a storm, to be greeted by her strange uncle and a house full of suspicious characters. It appears that she will be the next victim of the killer and is to be murdered at the hands of a gorilla," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis. Among the suspects, sensitive Mischa Auer (as Hanns Krug) is most fun to watch. Mother Martha Mattox (as Mrs. Krug) is another attraction; she was in "The Cat and the Canary", which effectively spoofed this genre. Unfortunately billed as "Sleep n' Eat", Willie Best (as Exodus) is offensively compared to gorilla, which look like his grandfather. Sy Tomashoff and "Dark Shadows" fans should be interested in the set production.*** The Monster Walks (1932) Frank Strayer ~ Mischa Auer, Rex Lease, Martha Mattox

gavin6942 A wealthy man dies, causing his family and lawyer to reunite in his home and have his will be read. Who will get the money? While the natural answer would be his only child, daughter Ruth (Vera Reynolds), two factors make this a bit more complicated. First, a chimpanzee that has a violent streak and a dislike for Ruth. Second, the possibility that an illegitimate child may exist and be living in the house.The actual plot of this film is not very exciting and you may have to work to keep your interest. Stories of an inheritance being fought over by family members is nothing unique, and for some reason stories with chimps and apes weren't particular rare in the first half of the 20th century. I'm not sure why -- there's nothing menacing about the ape in this picture. Nothing. There are a few plot devices I found clever (such as secret panels in the house), but overall this is child's play.The acting is also, to put it politely, subpar. The lawyer, Herbert Wilkes (Sidney Bracey), was very hackneyed. Worst of all was Hanns, the maid's son. His mannerisms were exaggerated and he had a broken speech that didn't seem natural. Another reviewer commented that he may have been reading from cue cards, and I wouldn't be shocked. Sure, this was 1932 and America was going through a depression... but couldn't we afford better talent than this? (Believe it or not, just a few years after this film, the actor who played Hanns -- Mischa Auer -- was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. He didn't win.) The only thing about this film that makes it maybe worth watching -- and I stress maybe -- is Willie Best, the actor who plays Exodus the manservant. There is a strong undercurrent of racism in this film that I cannot tell if it was meant to be intentional or not. Best (credited as "Sleep N Eat") talks and acts like a white supremacist's vision of the stereotypical black man. He mumbles, waves a gun around (even pointing it at himself) and generally seems highly unintelligent. The most memorable part of the film is when Exodus asks about the ape and the resident doctor explains that Darwin's theory states the ape is related to Exodus (said in such a way as to imply blacks are more closely related than whites). Rather than defend himself, Exodus says something to the effect of, "I had a grandpa that looked like that... but he wasn't as active." Wow.Anyone into the classic black and white films might give this one a chance. It's alright once you get into it. But unless you have a really strong attention span (and this film is only an hour) I'd suggest you try something a little more lively. It's safe to say that if this film wasn't being distributed in copyright-free box sets, it would have faded into obscurity decades ago.