This painfully-bad Monogram feature wastes the talents of two of horrordom's finest -- star
Boris Karloff and co-writer
Curt Siodmak (who would write the horror classic
The Wolf Man for Universal the same year). The goofy plot involves the efforts of one Dr. Adrian (
Karloff) to procure human spinal fluid for his polio-vaccine research by donning the pelt of a slain circus ape and slaughtering innocent people. The fact that he's snapping spines in the interest of medicine doesn't really help to clear the moral waters (he never does find a cure, anyway). Filmed during a particularly grueling year for
Karloff, this marks the end of his lengthy stir with Monogram (after a tedious string of
Mr. Wong potboilers). Without
Karloff to kick around, the studio concentrated their humiliating efforts on
Bela Lugosi, who appeared in a virtual remake,
The Ape Man, three years later. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide