Scooby-Doo And The Loch Ness Monster

Like man this sure put me in a good mood.

I don't know if I can rightly pinpoint as to why, maybe it was returning to familiar ground with early 2000s Scooby-Doo back when I was at the peak of my fandom, maybe it was the story setting in Scotland which God willing if I get there I'd probably never leave, whatever the reason I had a grand old time watching this! I know for a fact I saw it on the Cartoon Network when it was brand spanking new and yeah a story as simple as the gang visiting Daphne's scottish relatives and getting swept up in the mystery of Nessie works really dang well! Obviously the animation style is deep rooted in the What's New Scooby-Doo era and I gotta admit I missed that animation style, but in reality I just miss the early 2000s animation regardless of show. Coming off the Halloween movie the condensed and easy plot is a godsend and firmly exemplifies what the failings were on that one, it's barely an hour and 15 minutes but uses every minute to get you involved, have some fun, and walk away pretty happy. Honestly the fact Daphne has scottish relatives just puts the biggest smile on my face, and we get to breathe in a bit of the environment of the scottish highlands, the foggy loch, the very gothic castle of the Blake family, it looks really nice! Another aspect that brings warm feelings to my heart is I got to hear Casey again, and that kinda choked me up a bit it's been far too long since I've heard his voice and it fills me with unparalleled pride I share a birthday with the incredible man himself. Just so much about this put me in very high spirits and really did take me back to being a 9 year old revelling in my cartoons and imagination. True this more likely than not is strictly a case of my own nostalgia and probably won't be felt by many others unless perhaps you were there in that time and corner of the world, but damn it I thought this was good! The animation is crisp and that weird semi-2D but really 3D effect on the Loch Ness Monster works quite well, the chase songs are something I feel is SORELY lacking in modern Scooby-Doo, the voice cast does a good job and hey the scottish accents aren't godawful buuuut then again I'm biased towards such accents especially from wee ladies with red hair, the mystery is decent and actually may come as a bit of a twist for those who haven't seen it before, hell I was even digging the Jaws tributes sprinkled throughout, it was just a very positive viewing experience. I know some feel that the golden age of Scooby movies passed after Cyber Chase but for me, I kept watching the direct to video movies for quite awhile after the fact not really slipping from the fandom until about 2007 or 2008 but it's never really gone from my life. I fell in love with Mystery Incorporated around 2011, I still caught movies like Mask Of The Blue Falcon and Frankencreepy which are still some of the absolute best in the modern era, you just never ever forget your first. I give this one 3 stars, 7.5/10, and we will go even further back in time with one of the few remaining 80s movies next.

Scooby-Doo And The Legend Of The Vampire

Yeah I'd say this is the middle ground for this week.

I didn't hate Legend Of The Vampire, it's a decent little movie but it's certainly the most average of the bunch. So we meet up with the gang as they have just taken a cruise ship to Australia as they lolligag about enjoying the sights before they sporadically decide to attend a music festival at the totally not real location of Vampire Rock, where attending musicians (like discount Jimi Hendrix) have been kidnapped or scared off by a group of vampires that look like Kiss if they had a more psychedelic color palette to work off. They meet up with The Hex Girls again (Huzzah!) and quickly set about solving the mystery. What's really interesting about this movie is it's this very bizarre mix of old and new, the animation style follows the current show at that time What's New Scooby-Doo but the character designs are the 1969 classics, even the sound design is almost ripped straight from the 1969/70 episodes music and all, and it perplexes me cause this has really been the first to do that. Most if not all the other direct to video entries of this series do something original with it's production, maybe 2003 was just a sort of off year where this project got quickly pushed onto the director and producers and they had to quickly cobble it together. But it's not a shoddily made movie, the animation is quite nice, I genuinely dig the original music pieces, it's so goddang great to hear Casey Kasem again as Shaggy, the movie set a precedent with returning original characters with The Hex Girls which is a trend still felt today, I do like the movie but I don't love it. Will however say the gang does not make for very convincing musicians, not only is their look more ridiculous and just plain bad than any 80s hair band ever, but at least Velma has a kind of nice singing voice. All in all, I would only recommemd this to a hardcore fan or if it just sounds interesting enough to you, not bad but not great. 2.5 stars, 6.5/10, and we finally get to the main event with the first 3D animated Scooby-Doo film ever so join me tomorrow for Scoob!