HAPPY HALLOWEEN, SCOOBY DOO (2020)

 

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

Though a lot of the Scooby Doo DTV movies are mediocre, most of them are mediocre in what I like to call a "comfy couch" way. One doesn't have high expectations for any of them, so they don't have far to fall. Granted, the hardcore Scooby-fan may get more aggravated than I do about a particularly poor outing, like 2019's SCOOBY DOO RETURN TO ZOMBIE ISLAND. But the flicks are almost entirely for kids, and I would tend to assume their makers are wedded to their brand of consistent mediocrity.

And yet, I can't be sure that someone at Hanna-Barbera, or whoever runs that outfit now, didn't give ear to the complaints of fans who didn't like that 2019 offering-- because the very next Scooby to come out was a vast improvement over RETURN. Its increased quality almost certainly stems from being both written and directed by Maxwell Atoms, who's had an impressive range of animation credits ranging from THE GRIM ADVENTURES OF BILLY AND MANDY to TEEN TITANS GO.

Don't get me wrong, it's still another Scooby Doo movie. But though it does pick up a couple of the lame tropes seen in RETURN-- not sure why Fred Jones is suddenly in love with the Mystery Machine-- most of the time HALLOWEEN takes all the jokes that didn't land in RETURN and gives them Frankensteinian new life. For instance, Elvira, who only had a cameo before, is strongly integrated into the plot-action (Daphne wants Elvira to be her "Mentor of the Dark"). I assume Cassandra Peterson didn't contribute to the script, since she has no writing credits, but Atoms really gave her cartoon version much of the same sexy snark as the original.

The story seems to begin in media res, also like RETURN, as the Scooby Gang foils an assault on Crystal Cove by none other than the Scarecrow, migrating from the BATMAN universe by virtue of Warner Brothers owning both that cosmos and the Scooby Doo dimension. However, even after the Scarecrow is defeated and taken off by the cops, he drops some odd hints of a future threat. Sure enough, Crystal Cove is suddenly menaced by a horde of flying pumpkin-creatures and one house-sized pumpkin that walks around on stubby legs. In order to minimize the havoc in the town, the story sends Elvira and the Scoobies (assisted by a computer-interface from Bill Nye the Science Guy) on a Big Wacky Race as they try to speed away from the "jackal lanterns" (as Shaggy dubs them). Brains-of-the-Outfit Velma tried to solve the mystery-- not believing that the pumpkins are just some weird mutation-- while Shaggy and Scooby yell a lot, Daphne switches outfits with Elvira, and Fred obsesses about traps when he's not obsessing about the Mystery Machine.

There are quite a few clever quips spread throughout HALLOWEEN, not least one in which Daphne invokes THE WIZARD OF OZ to mock the Scarecrow. There are also good visual tropes, like the image of Frankenstein Jr appearing as a parade float. But even more the in-jokes, I like the fact that the jackal lanterns are among the creepier monsters to appear in the Scooby franchise overall. A lot of Scooby-tales have dropped the ball about making their monsters genuinely unsettling. Here, the monsters seem like a revolt of the pumpkins so often slaughtered for Halloween, even though even most kid-viewers will intuit that there will be some human agency behind it all. 

I don't know to what extent girl cartoon-watchers have enjoyed Daphne and Velma having a lot of agency in the Scooby-verse-- at least, more agency than female characters have in a lot of cartoons. HALLOWEEN provides some really good moments for both Velma and Daphne without making it seem politically correct, particularly since they're still vulnerable to being funny. 

To wrap up, I consider this a crossover movie purely because of the Scarecrow's participation. In contrast, fictionalized versions of real celebrities, like Elvira and Bill Nye, don't count in my system as crossover-icons.