Monster Walks

It is difficult to believe that this ultra-cheapie ever actually scared anyone; it's just possible that audiences laughed as loudly at the film in 1932 as they do today. On a dark and stormy night, Hero and heroine Rex Lease and Vera Reynolds head to Reynolds's ancestral mansion to claim her inheritance. Everyone in the house takes great delight in informing the girl that her scientist father died suddenly (the word is repeated at least 20 times in the first two reels). Soon our heroine discovers that she, too, has been marked for death by her maniacal uncle Sheldon Lewis, who is using his deranged son Micha Auer, Auer's housekeeper-mother Martha Mattox, and a huge and surly ape as his vessels of wrath. The climax finds Auer binding Reynolds to a post as he exhorts the ape to tear her apart; unfortunately for him, the big beast chooses to rend the villains asunder. Black comedian Willie Best (here billed as Sleep 'N'Eat) is supposed to be the comedy relief, but Mischa Auer is heaps funnier unintentionally.