Directors: Cecilia Aranovich & Ethan Spaulding
Release date: 2019
Contains spoilers
Scooby-Doo On Zombie Island was a bit of a gem for being a well animated, acted and scripted piece and also for being one of the Scooby-Doo properties where the monsters are real. The vampires were cat people who drained lifeforce from their victims to maintain the longevity of life and the zombies (and ghosts) were the victims of the cat people (and were trying to warn the gang).
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| a bat |
The first thing to note with this sequel is that the filmmakers tried to retrofit this and betrayed the integrity of the first film. The main ways they did this was firstly by having the gang be high school kids who have been warned off mysteries by the sheriff (David Herman). In the previous film they were portrayed as young adults with Daphne (Grey Griffin) having her own syndicated TV show. This is devolved down to it being a high school project.
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| cat people |
The other retcon aspects include Velma (Kate Micucci) having a blog where she lists the mystery in the unsolved section as she is not happy that the answer was supernatural. Yes, they actually try to take away the supernatural element from the previous film and, despite the gang having their energy drained and seeing cat people disintegrate, the disappointing resolution is that Velma thinks it was swamp gas that made them think it all real… The film does leave a breadcrumb of, perhaps, a real monster.
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| vampire |
Anyway, the opening sees them capturing a werewolf who turns out to be Young Man Withers (the son of the villain character Old Man Withers, from a Cartoon Network version of Scooby Doo and connected in with Wayne’s World and the Powerpuff Girls). They go out and capture a host of classic monsters, including a vampire/Dracula who does turn into a bat. They are all the Withers family members, but it all turns out to be a dream that turns nightmare for Fred (Frank Welker) and connected to him selling the Mystery Machine as they have quit mystery solving.
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| Cassandra Peterson voices Elvira |
Shaggy (Matthew Lillard) and Scooby (also Frank Welker) make the gang swear a solemn oath to resist mysteries and then watch their favourite horror host Elvira (Cassandra Peterson) and she announces a competition win for Shaggy, 3 friends and a pet to go on a tropical vacation. Despite the boat taking them down the Bayou and the palm trees on Moonstar (rather than Moonscar) island – which are soon revealed to be plastic trees – the gang steadfastly ignore what might be a mystery – that is until zombies appear.
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| Shaggy and Scooby |
Unfortunately Fred catches them and reveals them to be hotel staff, who are really actors directed by Alan Smithee (John Michael Higgins, Blade Trinity). He is making a zombie feature, based loosely on Velma’s blog and tricked them there to star in it (found footage style) without telling them. Unfortunately, cat people start appearing, unconnected to Alan’s film and apparently with the ability to control ordinary cats. They aren’t, of course, real and are trying to scare people off whilst they search for the pirate Moonscar’s treasure. There is an unconnected cat person who may or may not be a real monster and is dangled to the viewer at the end with the gang ignoring it.
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| the gang and stunt double |
And it is a no from me. The contrivances to wring out a sequel are awful, the retrofitting worse. Despite the animation being fine and the voice acting as good as one would expect, I just can’t let the film lie. I think 3 out of 10 is maybe harsh, but don’t actively spoil one of the best loved Scooby films. Of course the vampires in this are people acting as such.
The imdb page is here.
On Blu-Ray (with the better film) @ Amazon US
On DVD @ Amazon UK
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