This movie is truly awful in so many ways that it will be hard to mention them all, but I will try.This is another very short movie with very little dialog or action.It's lots of people walking and not talking.The entire first half doesn't even have anything to do with the story.Then there's an old woman wearing a Stevie Ray Vaughn hat and she's angry at life.You will never suspect she isn't white until her brother shows up and he's clearly black.She mentions having gone to Africa decades ago many, many times.I guess we are supposed to assume that she somehow brought an ape man back with her because they never explain any of it.She's some kind of doctor and she has just discovered the most important thing in science since Louis Pasteur.And you know she keeps the ape man locked up in her basement lab, because that makes sense, and he immediately drinks it and goes nutzoid.So he kills some people and innocent people get blamed but not arrested.Instead the cop decides to just stay at the house overnight.The cop tells his chief the dead guy "had a broken neck, two collapsed ribs and a twisted back.I thought he had committed suicide until I noticed he had two broken arms".WTF?He thought the guy broke his own neck and twisted his own back?Dumb.Did I mention the old lady use to summon the ape man from the basement by banging a gong but when a guy empties his revolver into the ape man, no one up stairs can hear it?And when a woman screams from the basement everyone hears it?Dumb.When the third guy gets killed the cop jumps up and screams "Help!Murder!Police!" three times.Dumb.The most interesting thing about this movie is seeing how blacks were 75 years ago.Apparently they were all well mannered, dressed nice, spoke English, had jobs and they all had normal names.Yet today they can't do any of that.I didn't even come close to pointing out all the bad stuff about this horrible movie but I'm done.Don't waste your time with this.

Very notable for featuring the first all-black cast for a horror movie. A newly married couple inherits a house from a woman doctor, unaware that an ape-man once obtained by the doctor whilst over in Africa, exists within a hidden room. When a small gong is rung, a wall panel opens to set the monster free. The doctor was working on a formula to aid mankind, but when her creature drank it, he became savage and killed her. The beast looks something like Anthony Quinn underneath a dime store caveman wig and beard. This at just about an hour's length is worth watching at least once because of the unique casting for those times, but it's kind of flatly directed. *1/2 out of ****

Son of Ingagi (1940) ** (out of 4)A female doctor lives in a large castle where she brought a few things back from Africa. One is a large sum of gold and the other is a half-man, half-ape creature. One day the doctor is killed by the creature and her home is left to a newlywed couple. It doesn't take long for the couple to run into the creature.SON OF INGAGI is best remembered today for featuring an all black cast, which certainly wasn't the norm for 1940 and especially in the horror genre. I've seen a lot of the race pictures from this era and all of them suffer from having very small budgets and often time not having that much talent in front or behind the camera. This film here is actually pretty entertaining for what it is even with the limitations.What I enjoyed most about this picture was the monster itself. If you're familiar with the horror films from this period then you know gorillas and killer apes were quite popular and they'd continue to be throughout the decade. If you've seen Bela Lugosi's THE APE MAN then you'll see a few similarities to this picture but I'd argue that the ape creature here is even better since the actor's entire face is covered here (unlike Lugosi who the studio obviously still wanted you to see).Of course, there are several flaws in the movie, which is to be expected including some pretty fair to bad performances. I would argue that none of the performances are all that good but they had to work with what was available at the time. It should also go without saying that there wasn't too much suspense in the film and as a horror movie it's really not all that horrifying. Still, SON OF INGAGI makes for a decent way to kill a hour.

While it's been said that there are other older films with all black casts dealing with the subject of voodoo or the supernatural this is without a doubt the first one to feature a creature and an African one at that.Historically this is a pretty interesting picture but as entertainment value it's extremely primitive. Made on teensy budget that would make a Monogram studios effort look extravagant this is an oddity even for ethnic films of the day as they were almost exclusively musical comedies or morality plays. Serious films and roles for African Americans would take a long time to get into the mainstream but the writer and Co-star of this piece of fluff would do much to change that a little later with his film The Blood Of Jesus. Unfortunately the stigma of playing Andrew Hogg Brown on the CBS TV show Amos and ANdy would hang over his head until recently when a lot of his serious films for the Harlem crowd were rediscovered.As the pithy story goes a rather bland couple has received a mysterious wedding gift from a seemingly "Grinchy" woman doctor who just happens to have a seven foot hairy ape type guy living in her basement. Nothing much is explained in any of the characters motivations but sometimes the critter is treated with sympathy, sometimes for chills and other times for laughs. In the first few scenes he comes off more like a mentally challenged human with a hirsute disease rather than the Gorilla Man that he's referred to later. Just when the good Dr. is on the verge on presenting a medical miracle serum to everyone her hairy companion drinks the stuff and goes on a rage and kills his benefactor. Whatever the stuff was it sure didn't agree with him. Most of the movie sort of clunks along with near run ins with the beast until the young couple inherits the house meets the ape man and the movie abruptly ends. I've actually seen worse old films than this tailored for a racial audience but this one is more for historians and exploitation buffs.