 Critics claimed it was in the same genre as the plays "The Cat and the Canary" and "The Bat", noting its similarities to "The Gorilla" and Rudyard Kipling's short story "The Mark of the Beast".The play had a prologue set in India, where an Englishman has killed a sacred ape and a Hindu priest puts a curse on him.Thirty years later, the Englishman has become a nervous wreck and sent to Los Angeles to be looked after by his family.