Sometimes I'll joke about how I'll watch and review just about anything, and for the most part this is true. I don't really have a lot of preferences in what I watch, and I tend to try to be an open as I can be when it comes to watching things of differing decades and genres. I think today I might be proving that quite well, with a review of an animated Scooby-Doo film! I first saw this film way back as a child, and I had fond memories of it, but haven't really seen it since. My nostalgia got the best of me recently and I felt I had to return to the original Scooby-Doo series and see how it holds up, all the way back to 1969. But this nostalgia spanned into the newer entries and animated films I could remember. The main one being Scooby-Doo! and the Witch's Ghost. There were brief moments from this that I could remember, but for the most part it was almost completely new. I quite liked that about this rewatch, going in and not really knowing what to expect despite having seen it before.
It was an interesting dive into the past. And I came to the realisation that Scooby-Doo! Perhaps wasn't as childish as I assumed it would be. Albeit still very much aimed at a younger audience. I was actually quite surprised in parts at how dark and more adult themed the film was, which led to a deeper dive into nostalgia as I questioned how dark I really remembered the show being. And I think a lot of this is down to this film being one of the rare instances in which something supernatural is actually taking place. A bit different from the regula formula of some person being in a costume and running around causing havoc in some Halloween-themed spooky setting. Despite being one of the later films, it was fun seeing how it held up in comparison to the original series. A very different world to the original Hanna-Barbera era of animation. That studio created a lot of things!
Scooby-Doo! and the Witch's Ghost
While it is a film, Scooby-Doo! and the Witch's Ghost barely clocks in at around the hour mark. This is something that was relatively the norm for the era, in which animated films, especially for franchises, were hardly given the budget to be grand spectacles aimed at the big screen, and instead focused more on the ability to perform in the VHS and DVD sales for homes. With this came relatively shorter runtimes for a film, ranging from the 44 minutes length to just around 90 minutes. A positive to this structure of shorter runtimes was the ability to churn out many different stories with relative ease, not taking up a whole lot of money and resources to do so. This means this isn't anything special, and is one of many. But it's also a chance for them to mix things up a little, to broaden a narrative and focus on a specific theme.
In this instance, they're focusing on the theme, as you may have guessed already, of witches. All the characters find themselves caught up in Salem, New England, to which as mentioned above the show diverges from the original idea of the gang investigating some mischievous plot conducted by some living being, and instead spans into the realm of the actual supernatural, a ghostly event that seems to be unfolding within Salem. The gang are in town (it feels odd to be saying the gang but it's a shorter way of naming all of the characters) as Velma is visiting a horror writer she's a fan of. This horror writer turns out to be related to one of the towns most historical elements: Sarah Ravencroft, a witch that was executed hundreds of years prior.
This is already where the darker tones of the film are evident. Going into the idea of persecution and execution, the idea of witches being the justification. Our horror writer acts as if she was wrongfully prosecuted, not a true witch and just one of many unfortunate women that practiced medicine through herbs. Ben Ravencroft devoting his life to try to save their family name and bring her some justice. Pretty early on we see the ghost of Sarah, but if you have seen the original series you perhaps wouldn't assume that it's actually a ghost. To make the zoomers of Hive that may be reading this, the film's main appeal actually comes in the form of a girl band, named the Hex Girls. A group of goth chicks that are to perform and are rehearsing at the stage. The film utilises these characters to briefly imply the usually formula, to which they're immediately assumed to be culprits.
The writing continues to toy with us through that implication of the original formula by introducing various characters that misdirect us, even showing one group of that have actually been using Sarah's ghost as a hoax on the town. I kinda liked the way it did this, it contains darker elements but hints that there's nothing more to begin with. This is some fun pacing that adds to the runtime, giving us a broader look at the world while also giving it all some time to actually flesh out, without any rush in the story to tie things up. This gives the later action more weight as it feels it is actually earned, with a pay off that certainly is not expected. In terms of writing, for a film aimed at VHS and DVD sales, it has some actual thought to it.
And this is felt in the animation too. Some of the designs and details can be really good. Of course the Hex Girls are the film's main focus, to which the film actually shows a performance by them to connect the action. It's still that expected earlier Hanna-Barbera look and designs, but of course slightly modernized in tone and line quality as the years went on. This was the era before digital really took off, so the animation would have likely been done by hand. This is another thing to enjoy about the film, seeing the handcrafted attention in the character designs and the limited world we see. Something you may not expect from, well, Scooby-Doo! Though we can expect some cartoonish elements and cheapened ideas that come with the original style of the show. Implied movements and sound effects, to be more specific.
I think it ended up being a fun little film. Something that feels like a lengthier, more mature episode of the show. Not sticking around too much to try to be more than it needs to be. No reduction in quality, and if anything more attention to the details than the tighter production series episodes. But it doesn't put the established soul of the style at risk as a result. It could be a fun little watch leading up to the Halloween atmosphere. Nothing too serious or spooky, but with some of those fun themes displayed.
