I like Black Panther, but I didn't like this movie.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

As another reviewer has noted, SPOOKS RUN WILD is a film which perfectly captures the spirit of Halloween, American-style: that is, a night in which kids can be scared by dressed-up ghouls and ghosts and the macabre is celebrated. This film's one in the long-running series of East End Kids movies, in which a group of overage twentysomethings play a gang of feral youths who are always getting into trouble with both the law and various criminals.This time around, things take a decidedly macabre turn with the police hunt for a serial killer, played to the hilt by a cameoing Bela Lugosi. All of the kids and Lugosi himself end up in a creepy old mansion, where lots of jokes and ghoulish gags arise. Lugosi doesn't have much screen time but is fun when he does show up, and there's a nice role for Angelo Rossitto (FREAKS) as his henchman.Other than Lugosi, this film is pretty good for being a programmer from poverty-row studio Monogram Pictures. The cast are lively and give dedicated performances and the jokes come thick and fast. Yes, this is dated, but in a fun way, and I still prefer it to 90% of modern American comedy. Sunshine Sammy Morrison, playing the token black comic relief guy (a character trope that turns out to have existed since forever) steals the show with his likable, scaredy-cat humour.

1. When Bela Lugosi's character (Nardo) and his sidekick drive up to the filling station, and later, when the Professor Von Grosch drives up, the attendants is already reading a book about the Monster Killer (supposedly Lugosi) and the Professor who "has come to save us."2. When the Boy are whisked off the street to camp, none gets to even see his parents.3. Nardo's and Luigi's vanishing act at the cemetery is never explained. Was the cemetery caretaker tricked by illusion?4. Lugosi, when he arrives at the Billings Estate, had asked for directions there so it is assumed he had not been in the mansion before. Yet, he seems to know all the nooks and crannies of the house when Muggs and the kids arrive. Nardo was driving only a truck with caskets in them. Suddenly he is settled in. When Nardo and Luigi were in the cemetery, they saw Diana Billings headstone. "Diana Billings. Winter came after 18 "schort" summers," Nardo says. "She was beautiful." It is not explained if he knew Diana or how he came to occupy her former home. 5. When the kids disappear from camp and Jeff and Linda's cannot locate them, Jeff rushes into the camp office. One is sitting around and the other is at his desk reading a paper. Jeff announces there is no sign of the boys and he's going to town "and we'll probably need a search party," he says in an urgent way. The camp official just keeps on looking at the paper without flinching. "OK," he says and keeps on reading. Look, camp counselor, 6 of your kids are missing. What is so interesting in what you are reading?6. And after all the loose ends are tight up at the haunted Mansion and the search party and the kids and Lugosi are all sitting in the living room for an inpromptu magic act by Nardo, why is Margie the soda fountain girl there? What made her journey to that place of mayhem in the middle of the night?Wonderful movie. Twists and turns and soooo nonsensical. I love it!

In a plot patterned after 1940's "Boys of the City"; Leo Gorcey (as Muggs), Bobby Jordan (as Danny), Huntz Hall (as Glimpy), Ernest "Sunshine Sammy" Morrison (as Scruno), Donald Haines (as Skinny), and David Gorcey (as Peewee) slip away to a spooky old country estate, after getting in trouble with the law. This time "The East Side Kids" meet a Dracula-like host - menacing Bela Lugosi (as Nardo). Naturally, the "Kids" think Mr. Lugosi is the "The Monster Killer" threatening the area. And, if you saw him dematerialize, you'd think so, too… *** Spooks Run Wild (10/24/41) Phil Rosen ~ Leo Gorcey, Bobby Jordan, Bela Lugosi, Huntz Hall

Although the Bowery Boys are (say it isn't true!) starting to grow on me, and I had somewhat high hopes for Spooks Run Wild, because you never know what will happen when Bela Lugosi is on the scene. Unfortunately the 'Running Wild' portion of the title can be aptly used to describe the movie, because this just goes all over the place, and uses weak excuses to justify it's actions. When the boys are on their way to Juvvie camp for getting into trouble, they stop in a town overnight. Also happening to be in this town are a mysterious stranger (Lugosi) and his, uh, midget friend, who everyone is convinced is some sort of monster killer but don't bother to do anything about it. The kids are stuck in Lugosi's creepy house, and basically silly situation after silly situation transpires, without any logic or reasoning building up to a ridiculous conclusion that, if you were casually paying attention, you could have easily picked up from the start.