Fred (Frank Welker) is quite excited about bringing the gang to his old summer camp of Little Moose, where he will now be “Counselor, mentor, hero!” and can inspire a new generation of Little Moose Campers, unfortunately the camp doesn’t impress anyone else, with Velma (Mindy Cohn) pointing out that it’s basically a dump. Sadly, the ramshackle nature of the camp is the least of their problem, as there are no little campers for Fred to inspire. Seems that one of the old campfire stories has come to life in the form of The Woodsman (Dee Bradley Baker) who has scared all the campers away. Lucky for Fred a bus arrives to drop off three new little campers and pulls away before Burt (Stephen Root), Camp Little Moose’s head counselor, can tell the driver that the camp is closed.
"Child Endangerment isn’t really a thing, is it?"
Stepping off the bus we have Luke (Scott Menville) a young Fred in the offing, Trudy (Tara Strong) a goth kid who’d rather be texting than canoeing, and Deacon (Mark Hamill) a short fat kid with asthma who later in the movie makes a startlingly keen observation, “Let me get this straight, there’s a crazy man with an ax in the woods, a ghost in the canyon, a fish monster in the water, and you guys want to split up and look for clues?” One must admit that this is a remarkably astute statement and pretty much sums up the Scooby gang's mentality. Our teen mystery solvers give it their best attempt at having some summer fun, with swimming, canoeing, and archery, but faster than you can carve “GET OUT” on a cabin wall our little group of campers and counselors find themselves besieged by a trio of campfire horror stories.
The Woodsman, a cruel counselor who went insane after a prank set up by his campers went awry and left him with severe brain damage, now he’s back and wielding an ax with a vengeance.
Neil Fisher, a camper who spent all his time swimming in the lake to avoid being picked on, in fact, he spent so much time in the water that he grew gills and fins and became The Fishman, who haunts Big Moose Lake to this very day.
Shadow Canyon is haunted by the ghost of a lost hiker still looking for her way out, “They call her the Spectre of Shadow Canyon” and legend has it if you hear her terrifying wail you’re a goner.
Scooby-Doo! Camp Scare wins big points for being a Scooby-Doo movie with a pretty high threat level, especially considering the scenes with the Woodsman brandishing his ax against kids and camp counselors alike, but what makes this particular entry stand out is that the three monsters are incredibly well designed and truly frightening. Then there is the mystery, which itself is quite well orchestrated if a little obvious – especially when an old newspaper article basically points the finger at the culprit – but the movie does provide us with a few suspects and some nice clues along the way. First we have Ranger Knudsen (Dee Bradley Baker) who tries to get Burt to close the camp, then there is the local shop owner, a creepy dude (Mark Hamill) who runs a museum that covers the areas darky history, and finally we have Jessica (Lauren Tom) a gorgeous counsellor from the neighboring camp of Big Moose Lake, who catches Fred’s eye and makes Daphne a tad jealous. Could one of those people be behind this trio of campfire furies?
Sadly, Velma is pretty obtuse throughout this movie.
Stray Observations:• When our heroes arrive in Camp City they encounter this movie’s version of Crazy Ralph from the first Friday the 13th movie, who tries to warn them of the trouble at the camp.
• There is a calendar in one of the camp cabins indicating that the date is Friday the 13th. This movie is certainly not being subtle with its references.
• The Woodsman was clearly inspired by the legend of Cropsy, a classic campfire tale that was turned into an 80s slasher film called The Burning.
• In the Kim Possible episode “Camp Wannaweep” camper Gill Moss spent too much time in the camp’s lake, later to be discovered toxic, and was turned into a vengeful fish monster. So, pretty much The Fishman minus the toxic waters.
• Once again a character mistakes a stick of dynamite for a candle. I wonder, in the history of dynamite, if this has ever happened.
• The flooded town location reminded me of Deliverance and a particularly great issue of Swamp Thing where vampires lived in a submerged town.
• Both Scooby-Doo (Frank Welker) and Shaggy (Matthew Lillard) performs some serious acts of bravery and heroics in this movie.
• The Mystery Machine can surprisingly outrun the torrent of water from a burst dam, and with Scooby-Doo doing the driving.
• If this was a real 80s slasher film Jessica would not have made it to the end credits.
If this was Friday the 13th or The Burning she'd have died right about here.
This is one of the better looking Scooby-Doo movies, with several great locations and action sequences thoughout its 73 minute running time, from flooded towns and underwater caverns to dark and spooky woods, rickety rope bridges to treacherous rock canyons, with our heroes being a hairs breath away from being killed at every turn. The clues dropped along the way make up for a fairly good mystery – a missing RV with sonar gear stolen from Camp Big Moose, boxes of dynamite hidden in a subterranean cavern, and a newspaper clipping telling of the story of how notorious gangster named Ricky LaRue had buried his stolen loot in Moose Creek, before a dam was constructed and flooded the town, and that before his death he told his cellmate, Baby Face Boretti (Mark Hamill), where it was located. That is a literal smorgasbord of clues.
Could this be anyone we know?
Sure, the big reveal that short and chubby Deacon is actually Baby Face Boretti may have been telegraphed a little bit too much – one look at that picture from the newspaper and Velma at least should have figured it out – especially when throughout the movie Deacon kept insisting that everybody should evacuate Camp Little Moose, and of course all three monsters turn out to have been Ranger Knudsen in various costumes – The Woodsman and Spectre to scare the kids away and the Fishman to explore the flooded town – but I’m sure younger viewers will be pleasantly surprised with the outcome. Simply put Scooby-Doo! Camp Scare is a solid Scooby-Doo mystery with some best-designed monsters of the entire series – I could see The Woodsman genuinely scarring some kids – making this entry a must-see for Scooby-Doo fans of all ages.
Note: Even though the three monsters were orchestrated by Baby Face Boretti and Ranger Knudsen there is a post-credits scene where it is revealed that the Spectre is actually real. It’s nice to see the writers throwing in real supernatural elements even if the main story is about a hoax.
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