The Monster Walks [PG]

In a spooky old house there has been a death. A scientist studying the Darwinian theory of evolution lies cold in his deathbed whilst his crippled brother awaits the arrival of Ruth, his niece and the scientist’s daughter. When the will is read, it transpires that Ruth gets the fortune and the house. Someone doesn’t like this, not one bit. That becomes clear when an attack is made of Ruth’s life twice during the night. The plot thickens as her interrogative fiancé starts a little snooping and when an unintended murder occurs, the rules of the game are changed completely. 

Whilst the title is pretty mediocre and something of the B-grade cult, this movie isn’t actually as bad as all that. Admittedly there is a large amount of predictability in the whodunit element of the central plot and the performances are pretty wooden and uninspiring and, well truthfully, there are more negative assets to this flick than positive, but there is something here, some theme that gets touched upon that makes this movie not so bad despite its predictability. 

I think what makes this movie the slightly interesting film that it is in the end is this exploration of amorality and corruption within the family. Blood ties and the institution of family is the real victim in this flick as the central characters are all either interlinked by blood or by their ties to the family of the dead scientist. We’ve got the daughter and her fiancé, the brother, and then the two faithful servants who are equally just as much part of the family as any blood relation. It’s quite a Gothic trope; this idea of corruption and ‘disease’ within the family and whilst it very well could be unintentional, I quite liked the way that it was explored in this movie. So that’s the interesting and positive part. 

As a film, The Monster Walks is a bit ugh. The plot is predictable with a huge clue being given away even in the very title and I do have to ask what was the fascination with apes and gorillas in these horror movies? They’re used as some sort of plot device, a red herring so to speak, and yet no one can really convey the horror that they’re trying to squeeze out of them. Maybe the ‘murderous’ ape is better left within the pages of a Poe story than on the screen because no one can seem to make them scary or intimidating. 

As I mentioned before, the performances are all pretty standard, clichéd and wooden, with the only amount of animation coming through the character of Hanns the servant who actually does manage to deliver a bit of the horror and eeriness that this movie aims for. So well done to Mischa Auer for that, everyone else is just going through the motions and the characters themselves are very clichéd: the pretty female victim, the strapping hero, the inquisitive attorney, the crippled sweet old man, the stoic servants, and the black car driver who attempts to provide the film with comic relief. 

Starring Rex Lease, Vera Reynolds, Sheldon Lewis, Martha Mattox, Sidney Bracey, and Willie Best, The Monster Walks is a pretty predictable and mediocre film, but one that has potential in the elements of the Gothic mode that it explores. Filled with suspense, drama, romance, murder, and really light comedy, it’s not really that good, but it’s not cripplingly bad either.