SCOOBY DOO ON ZOMBIE ISLAND (1998)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

As I'd not seen this 1998 DTV film in many years, I was somewhat inaccurate talking about it in relation to its sequel RETURN TO ZOMBIE ISLAND when I said:

I haven't seen the film for a long time, but I remember it as competent enough, given the added fillip that the buddies had graduated to adulthood and had put away childish things-- only to find that the Real Supernatural couldn't be ignored so easily.

Now that I've seen the original Scooby-Zombie, I see that the script never specifically says that the "meddling kids" have gotten much older. Their only cited motive for breaking up their mystery-solving group is because they've become bored with investigating ghosts and finding phonies in costumes. I think I got the impression of adulthood because the four humans and their dog are first seen occupying mundane jobs. To the best of my memory, no previous movie or teleseries ever showed the characters employed, and indeed, one TV show explicitly claimed that the rich parents of Fred Jones subsidized the juvenile detectives' peregrinations. (It's amusing to imagine the teens going to work in the real world after being cut off from some sinecure, though I admit there's no proof of that here.)

Though Velma, Scooby and Shaggy all have mundane jobs, Daphne and Fred have managed to parlay their career as ghost-hunters into a television show. But they haven't had any greater luck finding real ghosts, until the two of them get a lead on a possible haunting on the island of the title, located somewhere in the Louisiana bayou country. Fred gets the bright idea of calling the rest of the gang together to see if this time, they can find a real supernatural phenomenon.

Now, though the original Scoob-series always stuck close to the "guy in a ghost suit" formula, succeeding shows often had the Scoobys encountering all sorts of ghouls and goblins. So in a larger sense ZOMBIE isn't anything new for the gang. But I appreciate that the writers acted as if the original show was Ground Zero for their concept, because they came up with a very stimulating vision of supernatural menace, far more convincing than the catchpenny creeps from the other TV shows. In addition, the producers spent a fair amount of money making the bayou setting look genuinely creepy, not unlike the painted backdrops seen in the original SCOOBY DOO series.

For once I'll refrain from detailing the nature of the menace in ZOMBIE, though it does indeed include real zombies. One key scene, though, is pertinent. Daphne Blake defends herself from what she assumes is a man in a zombie costume, felling him with a neat judo flip. But when she tries to take off the mask-- well, it's not pretty.

I believe this DTV film is the first time Daphne ever displayed any martial talent, which may have influenced the more athletic character as depicted in the two live-action movies of the early 2000s. However, one iteration in the comic books made "Danger-Prone Daphne" a tough mama about a year before ZOMBIE, for what that's worth.