BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

BallWubba Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

Aiden Melton The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

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?

Michael_Elliott Spooks Run Wild (1941) * 1/2 (out of 4)The East Side Kids get into trouble once again so a councilor decides to take them on a trip for two weeks to get away from the city. They end up in a small town and decide to walk away from shelter and end up in a creepy haunted castle with a strange man (Bela Lugosi) inside.SPOOKS RUN WILD isn't a very good movie as it does very little "right" but at the same time I must admit that I watch it quite often because there's just something rather charming about it. Seeing The East Side Kids mix it up with Bela Lugosi should have made for a much better movie but it's obvious this was made on the cheap and very quickly. I'm sure most of the scenes here could have done better but they weren't really going for quality but instead something to get onto movie screens quick.I think the greatest thing the film offers is Lugosi in a very colorful performance. I'm sure he was probably wondering why he had to appear in something like this but the actor still gave it his all and delivered a rather fun performance. Just check out the highlight of the picture when Lugosi goes to complete terror when a skeleton is coming after him. So much energy and passion can be seen here, which is something only Lugosi could deliver. The rest of the cast are good in their roles but there's no question that the screenplay didn't give them much to work with.Again, SPOOKS RUN WILD is a pretty poor movie. The dialogue is rather weak and there's no question that there's not too much to the actual story. Still, if you're a fan of Lugosi then it's pretty much worth watching just for his performance alone.

wdbasinger Being a fan of old "B" moves from the 1930s and 1940s, this is a real gem from one of the so-called Poverty Row studios, in this case, Monogram Studios. Some of these so-called Poverty Row films have a charm all their own. I am a fan of both Bela Lugosi on one hand and The East Side Kids on the other. The East Side Kids started off as a group called the Dead End Kids from Warner Studios and I prefer their films that they made for Monogram. Other good movies of the series are "Ghosts on the Loose" (also with Bela Lugosi as well as a young actress named Ava Gardner), "Bowery Blitzkrieg", and "Mr. Wise Guy".Anyway, "Spooks Run Wild" is the best of the lot with fine old fashioned atmosphere (great cemetery scenes and a creepy old house), great wisecracks, and hold-on-to-your-seat suspense with a misanthropic villain called the "Monster Killer".Great film for Holloween.Dan Basinger

MarcoAntonio1 The boys are rounded up and sent to summer camp in the Catskill mountains in "Spooks Run Wild". However, there is a pretty waitress in the town's diner that they would like to have a date with, so they sneak away from the camp at night-time and one of them is shot by the caretaker of the local cemetery which forces the boys to take refuge in Lugosi's creepy hillside manor. There has been a killer on the loose and the boys naturally think that Lugosi is the killer and spend a nervous night meandering through his mansion trying to find their entranced friend who had been given a mild sedative. Nice film and the first of the East Side Kids film to feature Huntz Hall. The films studio, Monogram, reunited Lugosi and the East Side Kids two years later in the less entertaining "Ghosts on the Loose". Hall's line in "Spooks Run Wild" pertaining to his wearing a suit of armor: "My tailor told me it would wear like iron" is absolutely hilarious!