The Monster Walks (1932)

FEBRUARY 8, 2008

GENRE: PREDATOR, REVENGE
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK 2!!!)

Another Friday, another racist budget pack movie. While not nearly as offensive as King Of The Zombies, the character of Exodus (billed as Sleep n' Eat, for some reason) in The Monster Walks will most likely give a modern audience pause, especially in his final scene when Darwin’s theory of evolution is briefly explained to him (he believes it because his grandfather looked like an ape, only he was lazy). He also points a gun at himself while he talks. Nice.

Sadly that’s probably the only interesting thing about this dull movie. At only 59 minutes (the IMDb lists 63, so there are 4 possibly racist minutes left to the imagination) it still moves at a snail’s pace, and I don’t think I need to remind anyone how sick I am of movies in which folks in an old house kill each other for an inheritance. Granted, instead of a fake ghost or whatever, the villain sets up a poor ape as the murderer, which is a bit different, but not nearly enough to retain my interest.

Not helping matters is the odd audio problem over most of the film. Namely, it sounds like everyone is underwater. Now, none of the budget pack transfers are going to win any awards, but this an issue that is (so far) unique to this film. It wouldn’t be as much of a problem if there was a lot of action, but since 95% of the film is just people talking (the first 15 minutes are comprised of nothing but discussions over where everyone should sleep for the night), it’s a bit annoying.

Question for those of you who own and/or use whips – are there often handstraps on the handle that you use to secure the whip to your hand? The killer is done in because he couldn’t free his hand from the strap in time (the ape pulls him against its cage), but it seemed a bit silly that he’d even have such a thing. A good whipper should be able to hold onto his weapon!

What say you?