Review: HAPPY HALLOWEEN, SCOOBY-DOO! Is Fantastic Family Fun
Warner Bros. Recently released a new straight to home video movie for Scooby-Doo called Happy Halloween, Scooby-Doo!. We love Scooby-Doo in our house, so we bought and watched it, and it was a lot of fun. If you enjoy Scooby-Doo, you’ll probably find it to be a blast, especially if you enjoy some of the modern iterations. In fact, if you don’t like the more modern takes (starting with What’s New, Scooby-Doo?) you probably won’t enjoy this new movie.
Scooby and the gang join forces with Bill Nye and Elvira when toxic ooze creates an army of monstrous pumpkins.
Happy Halloween has a lot to love, like Daphne’s whole character. In case you missed the bit, Daphne has become quite the Mary Sue, and she’s lovable. She has a lot of fantastic lines, and we get to see her wield a battle axe! Come on! We also see Fred, who over the years has evolved to have an unhealthy relationship with the Mystery Machine, and this film really plays on that. The nice thing is that they do this relationship with great humor. Shaggy and Scooby are really just as you remember them for the most part. They’re creative and actually have a very sweet moment towards the end of the film with another character. Velma also gets to be a bit more than just the brain. We see her be a full character.
I’ll be honest, I didn’t know what was going to happen when I found out Scarecrow from Batman was going to be appearing in the film. However, they actually used him very well. Having Elvira appear in the movie actually turned out to be amazing. She’s been in Scooby-Doo before, although it’s been more of a guest appearance. This time, she’s one of the gang, and it’s incredible. Finally, Bill Nye is in the film probably just the right amount.
The story actually works really well except for one aspect that I’ll talk about in my spoiler section. Also, Happy Halloween ends up connecting a bunch of the other modern movies together and sets up a deeper continuation in the future that I’m now very interested in. If you enjoy modern Scooby-Doo, you’ll want to watch Happy Halloween, Scooby-Doo!.
OK, I just wanted to touch on one thing in the film that’s a big spoiler. At the end of the film we learn that the pumpkins are moving via drones. Why is it that when the pumpkins got smashed, there weren’t pieces of drone flying everywhere too? I’m with the movie for so much, but that seems a little on the ridiculous side of things. It’s still a fun movie.
