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In this episode of The Introverted Obelisk, we prowl the drafty halls of The Bat (1959), a murder mystery that promises a terrifying faceless killer but mostly delivers a parade of suspects tripping over blueprints. Agnes Moorehead stars as Cornelia Van Gorder, a sharp-witted mystery novelist renting a sprawling mansion called The Oaks — which comes furnished with hidden rooms, suspicious servants, and a serial killer with a steel claw for a hand. Vincent Price also shows up as Dr. Malcolm Wells, a physician whose hobbies include bats, embezzlers, and sinister monologues.

I walk you through the revolving-door plot: embezzled securities hidden in the house, relatives and witnesses turning up conveniently, and the Bat breaking in every other scene like a home renovation enthusiast with a murder streak. The police prove about as effective as a screen door on a submarine, while Cornelia holds everything together with intelligence, sarcasm, and more initiative than the entire male cast combined.

By the time the Bat is finally unmasked, the only surprise is how long it took anyone to notice. It’s less a horror film than a reminder that sometimes the only thing scarier than a clawed killer is a detective who can’t detect.

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In this episode of The Introverted Obelisk, we peel back the fur suit on The Ape (1940), a Poverty Row shocker where Boris Karloff proves that even brilliant actors aren’t immune to scripts about monkey costumes and spinal fluid theft. Karloff plays Dr. Bernard Adrian, a kindly small-town physician with a big dream: curing a young woman of paralysis. Admirable, except his method involves breaking the Hippocratic oath in half, stitching it back together with ape hair, and prowling the night in disguise to jab townsfolk with a syringe.

I guide you through this tragic tale of good intentions gone catastrophically wrong: the circus fire that conveniently provides a gorilla corpse, the fashioning of an ape suit that wouldn’t fool a child but somehow terrifies the town, and Adrian’s descent into nightly hunts for “donors.” What could have been schlock is elevated by Karloff, who loads every scene with guilt, tenderness, and the crushing awareness that miracles bought with murder aren’t miracles at all.

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In this episode of The Introverted Obelisk, we dive into The Gorilla (1939), a film that can’t decide if it wants to be a horror mystery or a comedy routine — so it stumbles into being neither. Starring the Ritz Brothers, who spend most of the runtime mugging for the camera, and poor Bela Lugosi, who looks like he’d rather be anywhere else, the movie offers a killer gorilla that spends less time on screen than the family butler.

I take you through the paper-thin plot: a wealthy man threatened by a mysterious murderer, a creepy mansion crawling with suspects, and a supposed gorilla lurking in the shadows. The result is a jumble of slapstick gags, wandering comic detours, and the occasional attempt at suspense that dies faster than a punchline at open mic night.

We’ll talk about why Poverty Row studios thought “ape in a suit” was a foolproof horror formula, how Lugosi ended up playing second fiddle to comedians who seem allergic to timing, and why the gorilla deserved top billing for sheer persistence.

It’s a horror comedy without the horror or comedy, but plenty of awkward chuckles along the way.

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