Dreadfully Boring

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

A newlywed couple is visited by a strange old woman who harbors a secret about the young girl's father."Son of Ingagi" is allegedly the first science fiction-horror film to feature an all-black cast. Even if the film had no merit (which it does), this alone would make it worthwhile as a historic film.This is really the brainchild of Spencer Williams (1893-1969), who wrote, acted and helped behind the camera. While today perhaps best remembered as the latter half of Amos and Andy, he was a true talent and a pioneer in the category of "race films".I would love to see this film properly released. Maybe it has been, but the public domain copy I saw was pretty unbearable and ruined what should have been a lost classic.

Up to the 1950s, small studios made films for consumption in black movie houses across America. Given that these movies were never shown to mixed audiences, their audiences were rather small and their production values even smaller. For the most part, these films lack the polish and professional acting you'd find in other contemporary films--though there are a few exceptions. "Son of Ingagi" is an exception--but not in a good way. It manages to be significantly WORSE than the average black-produced film of its day and my score of 2 might just be a bit charitable.This film is supposed to be a horror film--much like the low-budget stuff being released by PRC and Monogram. However, given the budget is even LESS than that of these poverty row production companies, the film never elicits any chills or thrills, only giggles.It begins with a young couple getting married. Soon after the wedding, a strange old lady doctor comes to visit the bride (who, by the way, is the worst actor in the film...by far) and wish her well in her new marriage. In the following scene, you see the Doc at home and she has some sort of ape-man living in her home that she brought back from Africa. Despite having lived with her peacefully for MANY years, the ape-dude ends up killing her and others. The young couple then inherit the home and killings continue. The idiot police send their #1 idiot (Spencer Williams of "Amos 'n Andy" fame) to solve the crime though he isn't much good. Eventually, the man of the house rescues his bride (who the monster just kidnapped) and destroys the creature. However, there is so little energy and excitement that you really won't care....just laugh! While this isn't quite as bad as an Ed Wood film, it is close. The acting and writing were pretty bad and the film is, unfortunately, rather dull. The only good reasons to watch it are if you like watching bad movies or you want to see an example of black cinema. Other than that, stay clear.

Although the primary attraction here is simply historical interest, Son of Ingagi isn't horrible if watched for entertainment purposes. But it's not that good, either. Besides preservation problems with extant versions, the film suffers from a lackadaisical script, fairly flat direction and various budget-related problems. Of course, the preservation problems are hardly the fault of co-producer/director Richard C. Kahn and co-producer Alfred N. Sack, but on the other hand, aren't exactly easy to overlook when you're watching.Given the title, an attempt was made to affiliate this film with 1931's Ingagi. Admittedly, I haven't seen Ingagi yet--it doesn't appear to be available on home video--but judging by the information available to me, it's difficult to see what the connection is between the two films besides a very loose thematic tie. There are no cast or crew members in common. The setting is different. There is nothing in this film known by the name of Ingagi. The only similarity appears to be that Ingagi was set in Africa, whereas a character in Son of Ingagi has spent some time in Africa, and Ingagi had a gorilla, whereas Son of Ingagi has a kind of ape-man.The story here, instead, begins with a marriage between Bob (Alfred Grant) and Eleanor (Daisy Bufford). They appear to live in Anytown, U.S.A. They head off for their honeymoon, which they oddly spend right next door to the foundry where Bob works--it seems as if he was planning on going to punch the clock the next morning. They hear a bang. The foundry has caught fire (we see none of this--we're just told it instead) and now Bob is out of a job.At the same time, there is a mysterious woman, Dr. Jackson (Laura Bowman), who was invited to Bob and Eleanor's wedding, but whom most folks are afraid of--she's thought of as a sort of voodoo woman. And perhaps for good reason. Dr. Jackson has spent a lot of time in Africa and the Far East, she keeps trinkets like skulls on her desk, and most importantly, she has an ape-man named Ingeena (Zack Williams) stored in her basement. He has a cell but doesn't appear to be kept inside. He enters and leaves the main part of the house through a secret passageway.There's an accident and Bob and Eleanor end up being named in Dr. Jackson's will as heirs to her estate--despite the fact that they did not know her very well. Suspicion falls on them, and soon, other bodies are turning up near them. Eventually, the police--especially Nelson (Spencer Williams, Jr.)--set up shop in Bob and Eleanor's new home while they're living in it, in an attempt to solve the "mystery".That plot description might not sound too bad, but the problem is that there just isn't that much more to the plot, and even those measly points end up unfolding flatly, with too much telling and not enough showing. It would be difficult to say, based on Son of Ingagi, that Kahn is a director who knows how to build suspense, but admittedly, the script is a bit lightweight, the cast occasionally seems amateurish, and the budget is low enough to make Ingeena's make-up more laughable than frightening. Even a climactic fire must resort to employing an obvious model of a building. So Kahn didn't necessarily have a lot to work with.It would have helped to beef up the script and make the film a bit longer. The Alpha Video print of Son of Ingagi clocks in at just under an hour. IMDb has the original running time listed as 70 minutes. That may be correct--the Alpha print has awkward edits and jumps that seem like some material is missing--but ten additional minutes would not have been sufficient to help the story. The print doesn't help, however. Besides the jumps, it hasn't been very well preserved. The image is often cloudy or scratchy. The dark scenes sometimes disappear into a sea of blackness--and occasionally these scenes should convey important information.Son of Ingagi is sometimes called the first "all black horror film". That's not quite right, but it's close. At least two all or mostly black horror films appeared before this one--Louisiana (aka Drums o' Voodoo, or just Voodoo Drums, 1934), and The Devil's Daughter (1939). However, Louisiana appears to have been lost. And the dates aren't always given consistently on this film and The Devil's Daughter, so it's difficult to say which one was filmed first without more research. That makes Son of Ingagi close enough to being the first all black horror film.Aside from the bland script, lack of suspense and less than thrilling monster (despite the attempts to give Ingeena archetypal relations to the Frankenstein monster), Son of Ingagi isn't helped by its lack of a score. Doo-wop group The Four Toppers provide a couple early musical numbers that are pleasant enough, but this also underscores the later lack of music. Music would have helped sustain an appropriate mood. In fact the Four Toppers songs do nothing to help create a thriller or horror mood, of course, and even later, Kahn just as strongly gives us comic moments. As another IMDb-er pointed out, Spencer Williams Jr. seems to be doing his best Mantan Moreland impersonation. But there's not enough of a commitment to humor, or horror, or any other genre for that matter, to quite make Son of Ingagi work.This is really only for people interested in the history of the genre, and particularly films with unusual ethnic orientations for their eras. Otherwise, make sure you have a couple strong cups of espresso ready to go if you decide to give this one a try. I watched it around seven in the evening and almost fell asleep.

Definitely recommended only for die-hard fans of dusty old movies, this is one you've almost definitely never seen. Long out of circulation in any form, this very tame 1940s 'haunted house' type thriller is unique because it features an all-black cast. Otherwise, it is badly dated and so mild that it's a real snore throughout most of the short runtime.The plot concerns two newlyweds who find themselves visited on their wedding night by a mysterious woman, a certain Doctor Jackson. Doctor Jackson is a severe old woman, and we see her roughing up her attorney and revealing herself to be stubborn and willful. However, she is also touched that the newlyweds have found her important enough to invite to their wedding, and she reveals that she was once romantically linked with the bride's father. Unbeknownst to anybody, Dr. Jackson has drawn up a will that leaves all of her earthly possessions, including her spooky old house, to our protagonists.Also a secret is the fact that she has a weird ape-man living in her basement, which can only be accessed through a hidden door. The ape-man is summoned with an ominous gong the old lady has, and it appears to be mostly docile. However, Dr. Jackson is experimenting with some kind of potion, which she foolishly leaves sitting out in the basement where the ape-man lives. It drinks the potion and goes homicidally crazy, choking her to death. By wild coincidence, our newlyweds happen to visit the woman at almost the same moment and find her dead, no sign of the ape man. When the police discover that they were the beneficiaries of the old woman's will, they suspect the husband of murder. Cleared of all charges, the husband returns with his bride to move into the house they've just inherited--unaware that the ape man is still lurking in the basement. A few more attacks happen until the inevitable bride-snatching occurs after our lonely ape-man ventures out of the cellar.The movie was filmed on a few cheap sets, with most of the action wisely taking place in the old dark house, but it's not that memorable of a set. It's poorly established, and we don't get a look at the creepy exterior until the conclusion, when it goes up in flames. The acting is passable, at best, with some comic relief coming from a bumbling detective. The makeup on the ape man is ludicrous, and there is no real explanation for what the creature is or why the doctor has it in her basement. We are to gather she brought it back from one of her excursions to Africa, but that's about all we know. Oh, and it likes cold cut sandwiches, too.Worth a look for the curious, just don't expect too much. Watch for a couple of lively musical numbers near the beginning of the film, performed by the Four Toppers (not to be confused with the similarly-named Four Tops).