SCOOBY DOO: RETURN TO ZOMBIE ISLAND (2019)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

Back in 1998 the DTV film SCOOBY DOO ON ZOMBIE ISLAND made much of the idea that for the first time the Scooby Gang was going to encounter real monsters this time-- not only zombies, but also a mysterious race of cat people-- rather than the usual masked malefactors pretending to be phantoms. 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.

Aging the characters was a one-shot gimmick, and since no Scooby fan really wants to see the intrepid teens as boring adults, I don't care that this sequel/reboot had the familiar quartet and their Great Dane back in their teens, but remembering the events of ZOMBIE ISLAND as if it were just a few years previous.

However, I do care that the makers of this entertainment just replaced one gimmick with another, and that the gimmick doesn't even make for a half-decent formula outing. The premise is that Scooby's gang gets invited to an island vacation, but plotters make sure they're really returning to the Island of the Zombies. However, the sequel rushes back to the default of the original series, in which all the occult occurrences of the 1998 film are negated, and humans are once again said to be responsible for the haunted hijinks. Seeing the Scoobies re-interpret their previous adventure is about as engrossing as watching the DC universe suffer through another earth-shattering crisis.

There's one minor psychological subplot of interest. Prior to the vacation easy-going Shaggy gets tired of constantly being thrust into the mystery-solving passions of the other three, so he, with Scooby Doo's support, obliges Fred, Daphne and Velma to pledge that they won't investigate anything during their vacation. It's about the only joke that's a little bit funny, but of course the subplot's over once the group's being attacked by zombies, not to mention feral-seeming cats. The windup explanation is predictably banal, but far worse is that the teens are forced to associate throughout their adventure with a blowhard filmmaker with the unamusing name of Alan Smithee.

There are a few shout-outs to devoted Scooby fans. A prologue shows the meddling kids capturing three phony phantoms-- the Snow Ghost, the Creeper, and the Spooky Space Kook-- who are now rebooted as being members of the same family, so they're no longer even close to the original characters, meaning that there's no crossover potential here. The spoofy horror-film hostess Elvira-- naturally voiced by "herself"-- has two scenes, but her brand of spicy humor is neutered in the name of family entertainment.