In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

This is a misinterpreted film, with reviewers (on another site) believing the opposite of how I understood it; another of those situations when we are likely reviewing different movies, so dissimilar are the ideas, anyway to me Mischa Auer but also Sidney Bracey are the best from the cast, each of the others being also strongly effective and acting professionally, even Lease.A horror movie with a good cast: Sheldon Lewis as the surviving brother, Sidney Bracey as Wilkes (a reliable old-school role), Mischa Auer (who not only got a good role, but also knew how to play it), Martha Mattox as his mother, W. Best (sadly reduced to a coward manservant, like in a later movie); perhaps not so good were the two leads, either bland (him), or less likable, her (which in fact means good casting, she's the offshoot of a doomed family, and she has to look spooked, but also spooky herself). But even she, is understandably scared, and shaken, and asks to leave twice, the 1st time they make her change her mind and the housekeeper keeps her company, the 2nd time she's handed over to Hanns; she doesn't ask to leave the house more than twice, and each time her request is answered: calming her, and then entrusting her to the cousin she doesn't yet know she has. The plot is mysterious and unnerving, the dialogs well written, and the casting, flawless (quite the opposite of what some reviewers affect to think). The visual style proves intelligent, unlike that of other '30s movies that look like footage for a radio play. Lease, the physician, was somewhat bland, but not unlikable, and certainly not obnoxious.Hanns is an Expressionist character, something Strayer was fond of, and the player, a '30s character actor, was highly effective as someone who's not at all a simpleton, and his bond with the elder guy is suggested by the impatient way he handles him in a scene; the plot also may remind of that feel, with its suggestions of beastliness, monstrosity, the 'Universal' horrors took over something from the European style. But the horror attempted here is different, starker; it's not an Expressionist horror, Hanns alone reminds of this style, otherwise here the terror is starker, more visceral, punching. A moving frame on the wall, hands seen in the funeral chamber, a clutching hand, a player's silhouette …. Then the pulse count reveals half the solution.Strayer in the early '30s: he was a dependable director. In this tale of a doomed family, where one brother preferred his ape to his daughter, and the other one fathered a gloomy man, the doubles are significant: the caged ape is the daughter's double, but also her cousin's double.Vera R. has been chosen precisely because she looked spooky herself. In Strayer's movies, the murders are sometimes shown, in this one as well.I liked the dreary house, the sets, starkly unnerving, I enjoyed the feel, and the dialog, with some likable people, like the physician and the lawyer, behaving as they do, the lawyer made a nice gentleman, and chivalrous, so I approve of the way the characters have been thought out and played; both families, owners and servants, are German, Hanns looks and behaves the way he does, because he is the sickly brother's child, his cousin asks only twice to leave, and it's explained why she remains (as also the ape's presence in the house is amply explained; less obvious is why would Hanns use the unholy glove for his hand, but the ape is his double), and when she was going to leave, she's kidnapped. There are only few funny moments, all by W. Best.The last joke, the likeness with the ape, seems added for the half-wits, and comes after an hour with two strange German families.

The concept of the old dark house type of horror movie was very common in the 1930s but died out relatively quickly . This is down to the fact that it's very self limiting but still cast a shadow against the rest of the genre . How many times have you seen a sequence set in a dark house where lightning flashes across the sky and thunder rumbles ? It's become something of a cliché and one wonders how audiences would have reacted when this type of movie was something new ? THE MONSTER WALKS is one of the very earliest old dark house movies and to be blunt it's absolute rubbish . This is not to say it's not entertaining but it should be pointed out that none of the entertainment value is intentional . Whlist James Whale's THE OLD DARK HOUSE is deliberately tongue in cheek keeping with the director's sense of humour this film is funny for all the wrong reasons A good example of this happens in the opening credits where one of the cast members is credited as " Sleep n Eats "a pseudonym for actor Willie Best . It's fashionable for African Americans to use a made up name such as Snoop Dog or 50 Cents but Sleep n Eat ? I bet Willie Best didn't pick that name . As you can imagine being African American he speaks in a stereotypical manner as in " Where da dead man dat "which if nothing else relives the tedium In fact the rest of the cast do their best to out do one another by giving the most dreadful , stilted wooden performances you can never hope to see in a movie with only Sidney Bracey giving any sort of accetable performance as the polite English sounding butler . As for the rest of the movie it would have been totally forgettable if this wasn't a film that was so bad it's almost good

"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

In the early 1930's, they had a series of these "Old Dark House" pictures, usually involving a bunch of people brought together in an old mansion as an unseen killer begins picking them off. This probably had a lot to do with the fact that early talkies were produced by people who had a lot of experience on stage, as many of the silent era directors and actors found themselves out of their depth with the introduction of sound.The film's opening graphic has a picture of half-naked woman being carried off by a ape. Of course, you see nothing like this in the film, as the primary actress never gets very naked or gets touched by an ape.The plot is simple enough. A rich man dies, leaving his entire fortune to his daughter, but her uncle is the next in line to get it if she dies. And the late millionaire had a pet ape he kept in the basement. Did the ape get out and start strangling people? Well, I'll leave you in suspense... of course not. It was old man Krug, he was the ape all along, and he'd have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids.(Actually, I think this is the second movie I've reviewed with someone in an ape suit killing people, which i guess was a pretty standard fare on Poverty Row in the 30's and 40's.) The final point is the actor credited as "Eat N Sleep", better known as Willie Best. He was typical of the way African-Americans were portrayed in this era, superstitious, subservient, and scared. You can't watch these kinds of scenes today without cringing.