Livestonth I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Hayden Kane There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Scarecrow-88 Although the quality of print was less than ideal, the film is dark and often murky, it nonetheless offers another fun spooky mansion, and Spooks Run Wild uses Bela Lugosi beautifully. By the early 40s, Lugosi was consigned to roles painting him as the bogeyman, but this film, while playing off the Dracula persona, does offer a pleasant twist regarding who he really is. There's an irony in this film: the East Side kids are creeped out by him so they always assume the worst, constantly trying to leave or flee his presence. Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, and their New York City Bowery buds are up to no good, caught being mischievous and shipped off to a camp for rehabilitation, go for a walk in the woods, when one of them (David Gorcey) is injured on a barbwire fence. Locating the old Billings mansion, the boys find Lugosi and his dwarf assistant, needing a place to rest and possible medical care. The night in this ominous mansion, where candlelight is the method of seeing in the dark, proves eerie for the boys as David walks about in a trance with the expected cobwebs, spiders, skulls, objects moving on their own, and never-ending rooms in the place while they try to find their pal. Lugosi is obviously enjoying the part as he never appears too malevolent or sinister, except the iconic "camera draws in to his predatory face as he approaches in close-up", talking to the boys with that thick accent (I personally never tired of despite his criticism for not trying to master the English language) that is almost always polite and civil. It is exactly right to me, this approach, so that what he might or might not be is left to us to determine. The radio announcement of this 'monster killer' does lay seed to whether or not Lugosi is him. Subplot includes a nurse (Dorothy Short) looking for the boys while the camp counselor (Dave O'Brien) remains disenchanted with being nursemaid to them. Dennis Moore is supposed killer hunter out to find Lugosi, but his presence seems anything but heroic. Good atmosphere and Lugosi's charisma help balance the film's dedication to the quipping kids always scattered and confused. Favorite scene for me: the knight's armor and how some of the kids no not what to do. As often was the case, the cops only show up at the very end once the killer is revealed. How the supposed haunts are explained away when Lugosi's occupation is revealed is quite the twist.

mark.waltz Bela Lugosi's eyes could haunt a house even if he didn't charge for it, as comic Groucho Marxx once said (supposedly to Lugosi's rival Boris Karloff) and here, Lugosi gets to go up against the most dangerous opponent he had since Van Helsing: the Bowery Boys! O.K., so this was a part of their "East Side Kids" days, but whether Dead End Kids, East End, or Bowery, they are still the same, comically utilizing malapropisms every chance they get and driving everybody around them crazy with their non-conformist ways. Now they are being taken on a summer vacation to the country, and what do they do? Escape from their chaperone's and head into a local cemetery where one of them gets shot. So where do they go for help? A mysterious large house up in the hills where the dwarf (Angelo Rossito) opens the door to them. How convenient that the new owner Lugosi had time to install a door knob that the diminutive Rossito could reach and that the little man actually had the strength to open it.So reality is never a requirement when you've got Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Sammy Morrison and the others around. It's all about the gags, and here, the spooky nature of the plot adds some very comical ones, whether it be a candle that follows the unsuspecting nearby or lots of secret passages and a set that looks like it could have been made for Dracula's castle. The plot concerns a fiend on the loose who is rumored to be of a supernatural nature (what kind of supernatural creature is never mentioned, but hints of being a vampire or wolf man are mentioned), and of course, Lugosi (whose car is pulling three coffins) is the main suspect. Lugosi is the polite, perfect host, but the boys all realize that something is amiss and plot to take him down.It's all innocent fun, wrapped up in just over an hour, and perfectly entertaining. Lugosi would go on to do one more feature with the boys ("Ghosts on the Loose"), but this is definitely the better of the two. It is interesting to note that the best Bowery Boys movies were always those that had a fantasy element to the story. In this one, they also seem to be at an appropriate age, which considering that the series would continue for another 16 years makes this more realistic, at least on that level.

lugonian SPOOKS RUN WILD (Monogram, 1941), directed by Phil Rosen, the seventh in the "East Side Kids" series, is probably best known due to its presence of top-billed Bela Lugosi, the master of horror, whose role as Dracula (Universal, 1931) has made his legendary. Although routinely done on a limited scale, and being a far cry from similar themes produced over at Universal, this entry gets by for what it is - a comedic horror mystery.The story begins briefly in the tenement district of New York where the East Side Kids, consisting of Danny (Bobby Jordan), Glimpy (Huntz Hall), Skinny (Bobby Stone), Pee Wee (David Gorcey), Scruno (Sammy Morrison) and its leader, Muggs Maginnis (Leo Gorcey), labeled underprivileged, being escorted by the police into a bus headed to the country for summer camp, as arranged by Jeff Dixon (Dave O'Brien). Dixon, a young man studying to become a lawyer, has a rough job ahead of him looking over these kids while working on his thesis. As the bus makes a stop in a small town called Hillside, the boys enter a sweet shop where Muggs takes an interest in a counter girl named Margie (Rosemary Partia). As Muggs arranges a meeting time with her, an announcement is heard over the radio warning residents to be aware of a "Monster Killer" on the loose. In the meantime, a mysterious man, Nardo (Bela Lugosi) and his dwarf assistant, Luigi (Angelo Rossitto) drive through town in a trailer full of coffins heading for the Billings Estate, which has been unoccupied for ten years. Later that evening, Muggs, sneaking out of camp to keep his date with Margie, is followed by his friends. Taking a short cut through the cemetery, Pee Wee is shot by a caretaker. Injured, the boys take him to a nearby mansion on top of the hill where Nardo offers his assistance by giving Pee-Wee a sedative and a room to rest for the night. As overnight guests, the East Side Kids encounter strange happenings, including Pee Wee roaming about in a zombie-like trance. As Linda Mason (Dorothy Short), Jeff's girlfriend and the camp nurse, goes out to search for the missing boys in the dead of night, she soon encounters a Doctor Von Grosch (Dennis Moore) for assistance.As with most film series placing its central characters in horror genre cycle or in a residence believed to be haunted, SPOOKS RUN WILD offers nothing new considering how the East Side Kids were involved in similar situations earlier in its second entry, THE GHOST CREEPS, re-titled BOYS OF THE CITY (1940). SPOOKS RUN WILD benefits greatly with Lugosi aboard dressed mostly in black attire as if he were Count Dracula. At one point he's addressed by Muggs as "Mr. Horror Man." There's the usual antics provided by kids ranging black member Scruno's encounter with a white spider; Muggs nearly getting trapped inside a coffin; to Glimpy's reply to Danny of having "gone to night school" as his reasoning as to how he can read in the dark, a reply repeated by Huntz Hall playing Sach to Leo Gorcey's Slip in THE BOWERY BOYS MEET THE MONSTERS (1954). Containing much of the familiar Monogram and P.R.C. stock underscoring, SPOOKS RUN WILD, set mostly in the dark of night with the gang carrying lighted candle plates, makes way to some fine suspense with laughs. Actually not bad of this type, with an interesting conclusion rounding up its story.Distributed on home video in the 1980s, later available on DVD as companion piece to GHOSTS ON THE LOOSE (1943), the second and last East Side Kids comedy featuring Bela Lugosi; SPOOKS RUN WILD has turned up on occasion on Turner Classic Movies (with re-issue Astor Pictures Studio logo in place of Monogram) where it premiered in May 2004. Next in the series, MR. WISE GUY (1942)(**).

bkoganbing Would anyone have believed that an Academy Award would be in the future for one of the participants in Spooks Run Wild back in 1941? I think one would have been told to get a cranial examination. Yet Carl Foreman who wrote the screenplay would be getting one eleven years later for High Noon. Unfortunately blacklist was also in his future.Academy Award winners didn't usually work at Monogram Pictures, but one starts to learn the trade somewhere in the film business. In this case it's with The Bowery Boys. They've been sent in the charge of Dave O'Brien and Dorothy Short to a summer camp. The boys go wandering off and come upon a haunted house occupied by Bela Lugosi.The usual Bowery Boy monkeyshines are present throughout. When the boys go wandering off however, we're informed that a serial killer is also loose in the area. It's from Monogram so don't expect all that much. Still it's interesting to see the genesis of High Noon?