So far with the made-for-video Scooby movies made since 1998, I kinda liked "Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island," I really liked "Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost," I didn't care much for "Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders," and I also liked "Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase." After that, Warner Bros. Animation switched doing the movies in a retro format that was faithful to the original "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?" TV series, with the original voice cast, animation style, classic sound effects and remakes of the old Scooby-Doo background music. As a result, I loved "Scooby-Doo and the Legend of the Vampire," and I also really liked "Scooby-Doo and the Monster of Mexico." Unfortunately around the same time, a new Scooby series was made that was based off the 1998-2001 made-for-video Scooby movies with plot styles from the original series, "What's New, Scooby-Doo?" and was a mockery to the franchise, until "Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get a Clue" came around in 2006. For some reason, starting with this movie, they began doing Scooby-Doo movies that were basically 70-minute episodes of "What's New, Scooby-Doo?" While the plot is rather mediocre, and the animation isn't that great, and they drastically cut down the use of the old H-B sound effects (which was also done with the 1998-2001 movies and the "What's New" TV series). Thomas Chase's music is pretty decent, I liked his "Dexter's Laboratory" compositions, and here it sounded like they used a real orchestra instead of synthesizers like on "What's New?" And they also went and changed Daphne and Velma's voice actors back to Grey DeLisle and Mindy Cohn. Frank Welker still voices Scooby here, and Scooby doesn't say much, like he has in the series and post-2002 movies, maybe because Welker's Scooby-Doo does not sound as close to the original (he sounds more like Brain from DiC's "Inspector Gadget") I thought Del Chillman was an amusing character, though. However, the actual monster, though it was a fake, seemed to be animated in a pretty dark manner, which could probably scare younger viewers, which the 2002-2003 movies and the post-2005 films have been avoiding (this is what "Zombie Island" was criticized for!) So this movie was not only different from the last two in animation and audio, it's also darker as well. If you're a die-hard Scooby-Doo fan, it's worth watching on Cartoon Network or renting, but if you must collect the movies, that is when it's worth buying. I'm not sure if this film is suitable for kids under eight years old, though.
