Hey Isn't That a Scooby-Doo Episode?

By Ian MacIntyre

Any horror fan who has owned or seen a television set in the last half-century likely has at passing familiarity with Scooby-Doo. Whether from 1969’s Scooby-Doo, Where Are You, or the far more expensive (and far more terrible) direct-to-DVD films, most are well acquainted with the tropes of Scooby: Villains in rubber monster costumes; last minute unmaskings; and a general contempt for logic and realistic storytelling. These clichés are ingrained in our collective pop-culture unconscious, and have been well satirized – from Wayne’s World to The Venture Bros. “Ghosts Of The Sargasso” episode (if you’re unfamiliar with the latter, drop whatever you’re doing and go watch that immediately. Do not stop for red lights).

But far too often when watching a so-called “legitimate horror film” there will come a plot twist that is so ludicrous, a reveal that is too convenient, or a swamp monster mask too rubbery... at these times, instead of finding true gore and mayhem, you find yourself instead saying “hey, isn’t that a Scooby Doo episode?”

NOTE: For the remainder of this article, SPOILER WARNINGS are in full effect. Namely for the “surprise” endings of many of these movies.

1. The Scream Trilogy (1996 – 2000) – Make no mistake, I believe the first Scream film still holds up as an excellent, self-aware horror film (as opposed to a spoof of the genre, which most critics incorrectly labeled it). Sydney Prescott (Neve Campbell) and her high school friends are terrorized by the Ghostface Killer (unfortunately not the Wu Tang member). The reveal of the slasher as not one, but two of the main characters, while not completely original, seemed fresh at the time. The movie ends on a satisfying note.
   But the sequels quickly devolved into diminishing returns. The reveal in Scream 2 of the killer being... two killers... again... this was bad enough. Not to mention one of the killers being the mother of the killer from the first movie, whom the audience had never met. But Scream 3, which actually mocks the absurd backstory revelations found in sequels, reveals the evil mastermind behind the entire series to be... Neve Campbell’s long-lost half-brother! Rumours abound of a Scream 4, in which Campbell will likely discover the true killer to be the elderly owner of a nearby abandoned aquarium, who “would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for those snooping...” etc.
   
   
2. April Fools’ Day (1986) – One of the most frustrating elements of Scooby-Doo is the denial of an established reality. Scooby-Doo is a fictional cartoon show where the possibilities are literally limitless. But every episode, after presenting a rollicking adventure featuring an awesome monster, we discover in the last moments that the adventure we watched was not only fake, but actually a real estate swindle perpetrated by a crook in a costume. It’s fiction! You are under no obligations to bring us crashing back down to reality!
   April Fools Day remains infamous within horror circles for it’s Scooby-Doo-esque game-changer of a twist ending. A group of co-eds spends April Fools Day weekend in a remote mansion owned by their classmate Muffy (seriously). Predictably they are picked off one at a time, until finally we discover that the culprit is not actually Muffy but her evil twin sister (get ready for it) Buffy! Finally, the last surviving student is chased into a room with no hopes of survival, only to discover... that it was all an elaborate theatrical trick, played by Muffy, who hopes to turn the mansion into a staged-horror resort. No real killer. No one actually dead. No crazy evil sisters with rhyming names. Fans either love or hate this twist – I for one preferred the story about the psychotic evil twin to the story about the overly-elaborate business prospectus.
   
   
3. My Bloody Valentine 3D (2009) – This recent horror flick proves that Scooby-Doo-isms are alive and well in the genre. A cave-in causes a coal miner to snap, and murder all of his fellow miners. (and later, naturally, some partying teenagers). Fast-forward ten years, and Tom (Jensen Ackles, one of the non-dead teens) inherits the mine, only to have the murders start again. But here’s the twist – Tom’s friends (and an incredulous audience) soon discover that the new murders have all been perpetrated by... Tom!?
   How is this accomplished, when the audience has clearly watched Tom and the Miner-Murderer in the same room at the same time? By the in-no-way hack cliché of having Tom be batshit insane. Apparently the version of the murders the audience just watched were Tom’s delusions, and he was the actual culprit all along. If I wanted to be frustrated by impossible mysteries and withheld information, I’d become a real police officer. Or I’d watch any number of episodes of Scooby-Doo, where that kind of crap is par for the course.
   
   
4. The Village (2004) – I can imagine what you’re thinking: M. Night Shyamalan’s movie about creepy Amish people isn’t actually a horror movie. This is true (it’s also not actually a “good” movie), but it was sold as a horror movie, and that’s exactly why it belongs on a list of horror films with Scooby-Doo themes. The movie centres on an isolated colonial village in 1897, where the elders warn the young against venturing into the surrounding wilderness with threats of monsters. When a young blind girl inevitably sets out to get medical supplies, the audience discovers that a) the film takes place in 2004, b) the sinister monsters are just the village elders in crappy monster costumes, and c) once again, M. Night has duped them out of $10.
   To me, The Village contains the perfect Scooby-Doo trifecta. You have the “awesome monster revealed to be harmless old person in a suit”. You have the “farcically convoluted master plot hastily explained to the audience at the last minute”. And finally, you have the “horror/ mystery story which turns out to be neither horror nor mystery” bait-and-switch. Oh, and the twist ending can be seen coming from... whenever someone tells you about the movie. 

© Showflicks Inc. 2010

0 Comments