The Monster Walks

The IMDb synopsis says that this 60 minute feature is about "people in an old dark house on a stormy night being menaced by a killer ape", which suggests to me that whoever wrote that has never seen it. You'd be mistaken for thinking this is the case by looking at the video sleeve pictured, or even having seen the first half of the film.

But the truth is that while there is indeed a rather violent-looking chimp locked in a cage in the cellar, at no point does the chimp get out of the cage and menace people.

And that is, by and large, the twist of the film - throughout we are led to believe that the killer is the chimp, but in actual fact it's a 7ft tall manservant with a hairy monkey glove! So, in essence, at the end of the day, when it comes down to it, the monster doesn't walk, unless you label the killer manservant a monster. It's a classic case of narrative misdirection, and although told in a rather simplistic way, remember that this is 1932, before many filmmaking cliches and stereotypes had been invented.

The acting is expectedly stilted, but special mention must go to Martha Mattox (who, incidentally, died the following year, aged 55) as the truly unnerving Mrs Krug, while her son Hanns (Mischa Auer) has an indomitable presence too. There are some nice twists in this film, from Hanns strangling his own mother by accident, to the revelation that Hanns is Robert Earlton's illegitimate son, and all he really wants is for his father to acknowledge him. Of course, the fact Mr Earlton has been having it away with his late brother's ghoulish housekeeper obviously prevents him from admitting paternity!

It's a creaky old Thirties spookathon. It moves slowly, but the twists make it more enjoyable than most of its ilk. Just don't expect any walking monsters... !

The Monster Walks, released February 1932.
Written by Robert Ellis; directed by Frank R Strayer.