Spooks Run Wild -- how the newspapers saw it in 1941

 At Plan9Crunch we've been interested in searching out old newspaper clippings for some of the cult films we love to discuss. The Bela Lugosi Monogram films are a subject of study. We'll be clipping from all the films periodically and we are starting with "Spooks Run Wild." The above clipping is a movie review of the film (favorable) from the Oct. 6, 1941 Los Angeles Times.

Below is an ad for "Spooks Run Wild" as being part of a midnight spook show. It's the film paired with the Asylum of Horrors show, with an in-person Frankenstein monster. It's from the Harvey, Illinois Tribune, of Nov. 27, 1941. Wouldn't it have been cool to see that spook show. 

Below is a previously published review we did of "Spooks Run Wild" by co-blogger Steve D. Stones.

A bus transporting the East Side Kids to a summer camp for the needy arrives in a small town known as Hillside. A radio announcer heard on the bus radio warns of a killer monster on the loose in the town. The bus driver stops to check the tires of the bus. A local magician named Nardo, played by Bela Lugosi, is seen in the Hillside cemetery with his midget side kick, played by Angelo Rossitto. Rossitto also played Lugosi's assistant in The Corpse Vanishes (1942), also a Monogram release.

The East Side Kids find their way to the Hillside cemetery. A local grave digger warns them to leave, shooting Peewee, played by David Gorcey, in the back. The group leaves the cemetery to look for medical aide for Peewee. They soon come across the Billings House, a rundown mansion thought to be haunted, according to Hillside locals.

Nardo The Magician greets the East Side Kids at the entrance of the house and allows them to stay the night, but mentions that the house has no telephone to contact a doctor for Peewee. Scruno, played by Sammy Morrison, and Peewee are assigned to a room together. Peewee awakes in a sleep walker state after sleeping for hours, and roams the halls of the Billings House. Scruno is trapped in the room, but is later rescued by the rest of the group as he refers to Peewee as a Zombie.

It's interesting to note that Lugosi dresses in a cape and wears a suit in this film similar to his 1931 Dracula character. This gives the film great appeal to me. Lugosi's appearance greatly adds to this film, but he does not take himself nearly as seriously in this role as he does playing the evil Nazi henchman in the follow up film of Ghosts On The Loose. Lugosi and Rossitto make for a great pairing, as they did in The Corpse Vanishes (1942).

Above is a newspaper blurb in the Oct. 18, 1941 Bakersfield Californian of "Spooks Run Wild" that includes a photo of East Sides Kids star Leo Gorcey, who was in the film. It was set to play at the Kern theater with "Top Sergeant Mulligan," that included Nat Pendleton, who would later star with Bela in "Scared to Death."

Below that blurb, in the Oct. 21 Californian, is an ad for the above-mentioned double feature, I love noting the start time for the features was 8:30 p.m., the address was 2024 Chester and the phone number was 7-7084.

But look, above. As late as April 3, 1942, Bela and "Spooks Run Wild" was still headlining -- at The Strand theater -- as this blurb from the Sheboygan, Wisc., Press noted. The co-feature to "Spooks Run Wild" was a film called "Mail Train," with Gordon Harker and Phyllis Calvert. 

But the next newspaper ad above is even more interesting. It's from May 7, 1952, in the Axtell, Kan., Standard. It advertises "Spooks Run Wild" as paired with the earlier, bigger-budgeted Lugosi film, "The Invisible Ray," from 1936, that also starred Boris Karloff. It was at the Seneca Theater on Saturday beginning at 11:30 p.m. I that would have been so much fun. It's great to know that 10-plus years later these films were circulating. It's a pity Bela didn't receive a cent from the re-issues.

Just a couple of more newspaper memories. Above is from the Moberly, Mo., Monitor Index edition of July 28, 1942, and it shows a double-Bela night-time horror show with "Spooks Run Wild" and "Black Dragons." Included at the 4th Street theater was the latest newsreel. Finally, below, again from the Bakersfield Californian, May 22, 1942 edition, is a tiny review blurb (probably cribbed from a press packet), for "Spooks Run Wild," which was playing at The Rialto. The co-feature was "The Feminine Touch," that included Rosalind Russell and Don Ameche in the cast. Besides the films, there were cartoons and Chapter 10 of "The Adventures of Captain Marvel" serial.

(Thanks always to my friend David Grudt who helped track down these newspaper clippings)

David Skal's Fright Favorites -- 31 spooky films for Halloween season.

Review by Doug Gibson

David J. Skal has a long resume of writing genre-intensive books on the horror genre. I'm sure many readers have enjoyed his film, etc., critiques in The Monster Show and Hollywood Gothic. And his biography of Bram Stoker, Something in the Blood, was an informative, provocative read, one of my favorite birthday gifts.

Just a few days ago, Skal's new book, "Fright Favorites: 31 Movies to Haunt Your Halloween and Beyond," arrived at book stores and online retailers. It has a 2020 copyright from Turner Classic Movies and is published by Running Press, of Hachette Book Group, New York City. Amazon sells Fright Favorites. I was fortunate enough to receive a review copy.  Here is the link to Running Press. And also, here is Skal's Amazon page.

Although veteran genre fans will enjoy this book (I sure did), it's just as much geared toward the casual viewer of horror films; those ones who draw a blank when "Nosferatu" or "The Mystery of the Wax Museum" (1932) are mentioned. Skal provides a brief history of Hollywood horror of the past 98 years, and even longer if you read his introduction on film culture's long, evolving relationship with October's spooky season.

I really enjoyed learning a little more about the backstory of a film. Skal offers tidbits from a featured film that you might not have known. Myself, for example, never knew that early plans for the giant ants attack film "Them" originally planned to have the ants invade the New York City subway system. Instead, the budget dictated that the ants visit the cheaper-to-film Los Angeles storm drains.

Another thing learned was that William Castle, director of tongue-in-cheek horrors, was the initial driving force to bring "Rosemary's Baby" to the screen. He did not direct it, of course. Paramount did not want a gimmicky adaptation along the lines of a "13 Ghosts." Castle took on the role of producer.

The wonderful films discussed include. "Nosferatu," "Dracula," "Frankenstein," "The Mummy," "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," (1932), "The Wolf Man." Universal of course dominates the early offerings, the aforementioned "... Wax Museum" and "... Jekyll and ... Hyde" are from other studios.

I enjoyed seeing RKO's "Cat People" getting an inclusion, as well as Allied Artists "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." Hammer Films get its due with "The Curse of Frankenstein" and "Horror of Dracula." Offbeat imports from greats such as Mario Bava are included, as are films indicative of the switch to gore, very dark comedy and downbeat endings, such as "Night of the Living Dead," and Rosemary's Baby." In fact, the final of the 31 films is 2017's "Get Out."

Film directors/producers such as Roger Corman, with his Poe films, and William Castle, are included. Other appropriate inclusions are "The Exorcist" and Mel Brooks' perfect spoof/homage "Young Frankenstein."

Your reviewer was born in 1963, and he appreciates Skal including the films I saw faithfully (to a fault), such as John Carpenter's "Halloween," "Nightmare on Elm Street," and the delightfully dark, infamous "Friday the 13th."

I mention "Friday the 13th"  because it's included with 30 other films in the "If you've enjoyed ...., you might also like" section of the book. So there are really 62 films to sample in this book. Some of these runner-ups -- with large-capsule summaries -- include "The Black Cat," (with Karloff and Lugosi), Dario Argento's classic "Suspiria," (1977), the recent horror flick "The Conjuring,"' and James Whale's great dark horror comedy "The Old Dark House." (1932), once lost for decades.

To be even more precise, there are likely closer to 90 films discussed as Skal frequently offers his comments on sequels to the 31 main films noted, including the Universals and Hammers.

The 31 chapters on the featured horror films have summaries and analysis which are neither too long or too short. The casual fan, just learning about the horror film genre, would likely get bored if the chapters were the length of, say a Midnight Marquee Press book, or one of Danny Peary's books on cult films. (Both MMP and Peary are valuable reads, by the way). But these chapters are roughly 5- to 10-minute reads and will whet an appetite to see a film profiled. I cite myself as an example: I have never seen two comedy offerings, "Hocus Pocus" and "Beetlejuice,"' but plan to see both -- in October, of course. 

If you buy the dead-tree edition, "Fright Favorites" is a slightly oversized book -- with an abundance of photos -- perfectly appropriate to sit on your coffee table, to be read in an easy chair or couch, at your leisure. It would be so cool for Turner Classic Movies to show these films, all 31, from Oct. 31 to Halloween.

Maybe that will happen one day. But until then, just about all are easily accessible via streaming. So one could indeed watch one a day this Halloween season. 

Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things – Witchcraft Ritual Raises The Dead.

I must admit that when I first saw Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things over twenty years ago, I found it to be in very poor taste. The idea of exhuming a corpse for a silly witchcraft ceremony seemed appalling and repulsive to me. As the years have gone by, the film has grown on me. The sharp, digitally remastered print of the film on Amazon Prime makes it even more enjoyable to watch.

A group of young theater actors sail to a burial island for criminals and paupers near the coast of Florida. The group comes to dabble in witchcraft and to exhume the body of a corpse to use in a ritual ceremony. Alan (Alan Ormsby) is the director of the theater group and master of ceremonies. He brings to the burial island a warlock's chest of ritual items, such as a warlock's robe, a book of spells and an envelope of dried infant's blood. Many in the theater group are skeptical of being a part of Alan's ritual, but go along with it so that they do not lose their acting jobs.

As the group arrives on shore of the burial island, Alan insists on upholding a “primal juncture” rule in which he hopes to make out with a beautiful new theater group member named Terry (Jane Daly). Terry rejects Alan's rule by stating a girl scout joke. Terry is not the only actor in the group who rejects Alan's arrogant attitude, as we see throughout the entire film.

Alan takes the theater group on a tour of the island while speaking in a Bela Lugosi – Dracula accent. He informs the group that the caretaker's house has been abandoned for two years. The caretaker was placed in an insane asylum after murdering his wife and children. The group breaks into the house to stay the night. The kitchen of the house is infested with rats. Alan jokingly says they can feast on the rats if their food supply runs low. Valerie (Valerie Mamches) responds to Alan by saying - “In your case, that would be cannibalism.” Valerie appears to be Alan's biggest critic in the group, so there is an interesting tension between the two actors in many scenes.

The group leaves the house to find the grave of a man named Orville Dunworth. Jeff (Jeff Gillen) opens Dunworth's casket and is attacked by the corpse inside the grave. Alan begins to laugh hysterically. Inside the grave is actor Roy (Roy Engleman) pretending to be the corpse of Dunworth. Dunworth's corpse was removed earlier. Alan, Roy and Emmerson (Robert Phillip) set up the joke to scare the theater group. Jeff repeats over and over - “I peed my pants” after being frightened by Roy in the grave.

In a failed attempt by Alan to raise the dead at Dunworth's open grave, he then orders Paul (Paul Cronin) and Jeff to carry Dunworth's corpse “Roman style” back to the caretaker's house. Valerie tells Alan he should have “stuck to the clown act.” Despite Valerie's criticism, Alan stages a mock wedding ceremony in which he marries Dunworth's corpse. Although Alan displays a tone of arrogance throughout the film, he also seems to not take any of his rituals very seriously. The wedding ceremony is a complete joke to Alan. He mocks Dunworth's corpse by reciting jokes about the dead.

As Alan lies in bed with Dunworth's corpse (one of the more distasteful scenes in the film), the theater group tries to leave the island but are confronted by zombies who have risen from their graves. The group flees back to the caretaker's house in a scene that is reminiscent of George Romero's Night of The Living Dead (1968). Zombies pound on windows and doors as the group nails up boards on the inside of the house.

Director Bob Clark went on to direct a number of other great cult classics – such as Black Christmas (1974), A Christmas Story (1983) and Porky's (1981). Clark was planning on directing a remake of Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things before his death in 2007, but the remake never happened.

Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things was also known as Revenge of The Living Dead, Things From The Dead and Zreaks. Although the film is often put in the category of “comedic horror,” there is very little humor in the film. The end sequence of zombies digging their way out of graves and roaming the cemetery is genuinely frightening and effective. Happy viewing.

--- Steve D. Stones