SCOOBY-DOO ON ZOMBIE ISLAND

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Bolstering some seriously impressive animation off the backs of Japanese studio Mook along with some genuine writing chops and affection for the franchise, SCOOBY-DOO ON ZOMBIE ISLAND might be the genuine peak of this talking dog and crew's career. it's impressive how mature the movie feels, how it proceeds, how it gradually settles into its pacing and rhythm and building building building its suspense until the pivotal reveal. there's a great sense of humor at play, and i really adore how fully realized the main characters are this time around, velma and daphne particularly working with agency one doesn't usually come to expect from what is ostensibly the shaggy and scooby show. they take a very proactive role in the plot with their own motivations alongside their co-workers and, in doing so, make Scooby-doo and friends feel like a team firing on all cylinders. So while it's certainly empowering on a gendered front, ah... it's a movie set in Louisiana absent of black characters much of all save for the tv interview intro. Bit strange innit. Anyway, take all that and add in a plot with some serious teeth to it (seriously, is there a movie in this franchise with more deaths and display of such than this...?) and you've got something that freaks out the kids (certainly did for me) and entertains the adults (ditto).

Something that's really interesting to me is, of the five main leads, only Fred returns with the original voice actor Frank Welker, the rest new or returning stand-ins. Shaggy's in particular wasn't going to budge given his renewed vegetarianism, arguing that his character should never eat meat on-screen again if they wanted him. But what's funny about Frank is even he almost got cut... the producers kept requesting he speak at a higher tone to match the classic scooby doo, while Frank argued his deep tone was how it had always been. The team ended up going back and rewatching old Scooby-doo episodes and finding... Welker was right, his voice really had always been this way. What had happened was this: Scooby reruns were specifically sped up to allow for more commercial airtime and, in doing so, artificially inflated the balloon of Fred Jones' voice. Funny.