Spooks Run Wild

Spooks Run Wild is one of those movies that seemed incredibly neat to many of us as kids -- at age eight, what could one say that's bad about a picture that mixes the East Side Kids, Bela Lugosi, diminutive actor Angelo Rossitto, Reefer Madness-alumnus and future Red Skelton gagman Dave O'Brien, a haunted house, and a serial murderer on the loose all together in a 65 minute stew? Critics and film historians, along with Lugosi fans, however, despise the movie -- this DVD is a reminder that whatever one's objections, based on illogical elements of the script and too many red-herrings littering the landscape, Spooks Run Wild has one element that makes it worth seeing today: It's fun, and then some. There were flaws in the first copy that this reviewer picked up that made it impossible to run it on my DVD player, but on my computer it not only started up just fine but looked and sounded good -- not great, but no worse than some of the old broadcasts of the picture when it was still under copyright, though there are some sloppy moments in the film-to-video transfer. The real treat was finally seeing the movie intact; when it was shown on television, the 65 minute Spooks Run Wild was usually shoe-horned into a one-hour time-slot, which meant that the first 13 minutes of the movie were chopped out -- this DVD was the first time in 30+ years that this reviewer had seen the original opening, which contains a very funny bit byHuntz Hall in what was only his second East Side Kids movie. The source for this disc isn't perfect, but even the darkest scenes have some detail and the audio is consistent throughout. As to the movie, it holds up better than its detractors make out, and parts of it are genuinely funny, in a 30's lunkhead humor sort of way. The disc opens automatically on a simple menu and offers five chapter designations, not really adequate but hardly a drawback, either.