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I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

As Good As It Gets

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

This movie is slow & corny. It's not a good film but does have enough strangeness to be slightly entertaining in a boring sort of way. Overall the film is, well, boring. There are moments of slightly weird entertainment.Some of the film posters for the movie shows what appears to be a gorilla but it is not a gorilla - it is a chimpanzee named Yogi that is screeching and escapes into the rest of the house.The acting is stiff - very wooden, the plot & story are weak and the overall scariness is zero. This movie I can say is easy to pass up because you are not missing anything if you do decide to pass over this film. If you do decide to watch this movie - don't expect much out of it because there is very little entertainment to get out of this film.2/10

This venerable 1932 production looks prehistoric with its Poverty Row value and run-of-the-mill scripting. Basically, what we have here is another "Old Dark House" knock-off with a group of characters convening a meeting at night during a storm to hear the reading of a dead man's will. The chief problem with "The Monster Walks" is that there are not enough suspects and some characters may be ruled out in advance when the murders begin. Naturally, we aren't privy to some important information that might help us identify the killer. Moreover, the filmmakers have gone out of their way to complicate matters, especially after you learn about the outcome. Frank Strayer directs without urgency and drags out some red herrings to throw us off the scent. The use of an ape caged in the basement to generate suspense works initially until it is clear that the ape cannot escape his enclosure. The acting consists of a mixed bag, while the production designs look okay. If you're going to watch this to catch a glimpse of the eponymous Monster as it walks, you're in for a dire letdown. The monster never appears in full shot.

This old rickety film contains two of the most common features of Poverty Row output of the 30's and 40's – an old dark house and a man in a monkey suit. Many similar features had these elements and this was one of the few that had both. Well, I say a man in a monkey suit; however, we only get to see the monkey arm occasionally, not the full beast. Although there is a real caged chimp in the basement. I really don't know what the fascination was with killer apes in these old movies but there are countless examples of this format in cheap – and not so cheap – productions of the period. Whatever the reason, this in yet another one.It's set entirely in a house on a stormy night, where a family gather to hear a will read. The deceased leaves most of his money to his daughter and this leaves some of the loyal servants unhappy. Shortly after this a murder occurs and there could be a killer ape on the prowl… It's an utterly ridiculous film. And frankly this is one of its charms. The whole idea of the killer ape being responsible is quite amazingly silly, seeing as the chimp in the basement clearly never leaves his cage. But this doesn't stop the film-makers trying to point the blame in that direction. While none of that makes an ounce of sense, the flick does have a reasonable atmosphere as the thunder and lightning crack away outside while we move around the interior of the old darkened Gothic house. It's actually not a bad setting at all. The characters do have a tendency to say extremely daft lines such as 'there can be only one answer, it must be the monkey'. Or when the obligatory cowardly black man says of the chimp in the basement 'he looks just like my grand pappy' and it's not only meant to be a funny joke but it's the final line in the film! It actually is a funny line but only because it's so cheerfully racist in such an innocent way. Ah, times have indeed changed.The film ends with a bizarre scene where the bad guy takes the heroine into the basement where the chimp lives. He then starts whipping its cage, getting it into a murderous frenzy. Just quite what he was trying to achieve here is left more than a little unclear. But it does allow the film to end in a very strange if ridiculous scene.

Slow moving old dark house chiller consisting of several familiar traits associated with these kind of films. The heiress set to receive a fortune after returning home to her father's mansion for a will reading with her fiancé. Secret rooms and passageways. Suspicious characters that'd have a reason to harm her, such as the maid, her manservant son, and the invalid uncle all desiring a larger portion of the inheritance that is unavailable as long as she remains alive to collect. You have the thunderstorm and lighting outside. The killer constantly threatening to kill her, often failing to do so due to unforeseen circumstances. And, an amateur sleuth, attempting to solve the mystery as to who would wish for his beloved girl's demise.The film adds a primate caged in a basement, a pet of the deceased who was a follower of the Darwinian theory. The woman in peril is Ruth Earlton(Vera Reynolds), and her fiancé is Dr. Ted Clayton(Rex Lease). Ruth's uncle is Robert(Sheldon Lewis), with crippled legs, always needing assistance and all around pitiable sight. Emma Krug(Martha Mattox)and her glum son, Hanns(Mischa Auer)are the hired help, really unhappy about how unappreciated they were by their former employer. A furry arm extends from behind a curtain over Ruth's bed attempting to strangle her, inevitably killing someone else on accident who was lying in her spot. Hanns has a secret as to why he's particularly angry, besides his mother's meager salary left to her in the will(..Hanns didn't receive anything just fueling his malice even further)..concerning Robert, who himself would get everything if Ruth were out of the picture. Clayton, along with Mr. Wilkes(Sidney Bracey), executor of the will, attempt to uncover whose behind the sneaky shenanigans involving his future wife.There's really nothing attractive about this fossil, as the cast(..or their characters for that matter) aren't that interesting(..a rather dull, colorless, stiff bunch)or is the mystery at the heart of the plot. The film pretty much goes out of it's way to tell us who the perpetrator is, and the whole scenario around the primate is rather embarrassing/laughable. African-Americans, I'm sure, will cringe at the treatment of Willie Best's chauffeur, the black man constantly ordered around like a mutt by his white superiors, who bark at him as he expresses his displeasure for being stuck at the mansion around a potentially dangerous ape. Best's character is slow, constantly befuddled, frightened, uneducated and subservient..it's a disturbing stereotype that would typecast black actors/actresses for decades to come. To top it all off, his character is told of how some believe we came from apes and he mentions how his grandfather favored one! The title is rather lame as well. This one isn't exactly worth pursuing, but of mild interest to fans of low budget B-movies, who enjoy films featuring a damsel in distress, a fortune coveted, and a series of events that lead to the unmasking of a concocted plan that falls apart. There have been better films featuring a similar kind of plot and characters(..without the caged ape, of course), and I'd say search elsewhere for better examples of the genre.