The October Zombie-Thon - Day 17: Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island

Posted by Trevor Snyder on 10.17.2008

Alas, no zombies vs. Harlem Globetrotters.

SCOOBY-DOO ON ZOMBIE ISLAND (1998)



Directed by: Hiroshi Aoyama, Kazumi Fukushima, and Jim Stenstrum
Written by: Davis Doi and Glenn Leopold
Country: USA

OK, so maybe an animated family film doesn't seem like the most natural match for this column. But c'mon…look at that title! Besides, when you spend as much time watching the same types of zombie flicks over and over as I do, just about anything different seems like a welcome change of pace. So this will have to do, even though any excitement over it was calmed by the fact that, even as a child, I was never really that into Scooby-Doo (although I will admit to enjoying the wackier A Pup Named Scooby-Doo).

That I was never a fan of the original show is somewhat surprising, I suppose, given that even as a kid my love of all things horror was beginning to form. I don't know…I think I was just constantly disappointed that the "ghosts" and "monsters" were always revealed to be nothing more than guys in masks.

But then, so were the Mystery Inc. gang, according to this movie, so I guess we're all on the same page. Much like the later live-action Scooby-Doo movie, this one is meant to take place some time after the original show ended, with the gang – disappointed they never found any real supernatural threats – split-up and moved on from their crime solving days. Velma is running an occult book-store, Fred and Daphne produce and star (respectively) in the hit morning show "Coast to Coast with Daphne Blake," and Shaggy and Scooby are a couple of slacker U.S. Customs guards at an airport.

You just can't make this group happy, though, as they all find their new lives a little too dull. And so they each eagerly jump at Fred's decision to reunite and search for a real haunted house for an anniversary episode of Daphne's show. Apparently having never watched the old Scooby-Doo show themselves, the gang unsurprisingly find nothing more than a series of red herrings, at first. Their luck seems to turn, however, when a mysterious young woman invites them back to the supposedly haunted plantation where she lives, deep in the heart of the Louisiana bayou.

It doesn't take long after their arrival for the gang to start experiencing what appear to be actual, 100% authentic paranormal encounters. This thrills everyone – except, of course, the cowardly Shaggy & Scooby, who would much rather be spending their time eating or chasing the plantation's many cats than having to fend off real-life ghosts. Little do they know, the ghosts are the least of their problems. Eventually, the titular zombies make the scene, rising up from the surrounding swamps and descending upon the now obviously really haunted plantation. Ruh-roh!

Considering who this movie was intended for, I feel a little silly even attempting to criticize any faults it might have. Given my intense love for zombie cinema, I have undoubtedly thought of myself as part of the target audience for every movie I have reviewed in the Zombie-Thon…until now. This movie is not meant to join the ranks of other living dead classics. It's meant to entertain the children and keep them out of their parents' hair for awhile. But even looking at it in that capacity, I can't help but wonder if the movie slightly misses the boat. It's nice to see the whole "guy in a mask" and the other clichés of the original series gently poked fun at, but is that stuff really going to play with any young kids who are essentially introduced to Scooby-Doo with this movie? Maybe that doesn't matter – after all, the young audience will probably just be happy watching a talking dog do funny things, and almost certainly won't waste their time over-analyzing the strength of the film's storytelling. That's my job.

What if, though, you do try to review it solely on its merits as a zombie movie? Judged in that light, I'm still not sure it's particularly impressive, although this can almost certainly be blamed on the limitations set by its target audience. After all, it's not like you can have the zombies be too scary in a movie meant for wee ones – and, in fact, the undead here are even eventually revealed as heroes of a sort. Now, I'm not saying that casting the zombies as good guys was a bad idea. But still, anyone who hears that title and foolishly hopes that Warner Bros. was going to bravely throw the Scooby gang into a Romero-esque zombie siege will be sorely disappointed.

Admittedly, though, it is pretty cool that Warner Bros. even put real zombies in a kiddy cartoon movie, and so I give them credit for that. Heck, the zombie designs are pretty decent (they probably look as cool as they could in a movie like this), and there's at least one great sequence that actually benefits from being animated. That would be the movie's funniest scene, in which Fred – determined to prove a prone zombie is just another masked imposter – ends up actually pulling the dead guy's head right off. When you really think about it, this is pretty gruesome stuff for a family film, but since the animation avoids any unnecessary blood or gore, it all seems completely harmless…even as our heroes end up tossing the head around like a hot potato.

Moments like that will have you wishing the zombies played a larger role in the movie, and that Warner Bros. had shown more faith in allowing the living dead to completely carry the antagonist role. Instead, the movie also offers up both ghost pirates (or is it pirate ghosts?) and were-cats (as lame as it sounds…and unfortunately they're the main villains), as well. I get that they were trying to prove the franchise was now definitely moving in an actual supernatural direction, but it's all a bit much. You had me at the zombies, guys.

Still, none of these complaints mean diddly-squat, in the long run. This is a kid's movie, first and foremost, and although I don't think I can revert back to that mindset enough to confirm this, I suspect it will do a pretty damn effective job winning most children over. It's light, harmless stuff, with more than a few genuinely decent chuckles. And, in a best case scenario, perhaps it will inspire its young viewers to search out more mature zombie fare as they grow older. Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island might not have been a movie made for me, but it's certainly worth recommending to little ones or older Scooby-Doo fans on a nostalgic kick.

FINAL SCORE: 2.5 out of 4 Bubs (Mildly Recommended)