The Return of Swamp Thing (1989) – Review

In 1982 director Wes Craven tackled the live-action adaptation of Swamp Thing, a DC comic book created by writer Len Wein and legendary artist Bernie Wrightson back in the 70s, but with a script that had only a modicum of similarities to the source material – a scientist turned into a swamp monster and a villain named Arcane who wants him for some reason – and with only a $2 million dollar budget it turned out better than expected, just not one that was all that faithful to the comic book. Flash forward to 1989 and director Jim Wynorski was given the task of bringing a sequel to the big screen, with a slightly higher budget but without Adrienne Barbeau.

The plot of the sequel, and I'm using the word “plot” in the broadest sense, deals not only with the return of the titular Swamp Thing but with that of Anton Arcane (Louis Jourdan), who despite transforming into a boar-lion hybrid creature and being killed by Swamp Thing in the previous film is now back in the land of the living, as well as in human form.  There is some lip service to him being found in the swamp by one of his underlings, and somehow resurrected, but this is done via a throwaway line in one of the best examples of lazy screenwriting I've ever seen and doesn’t remotely qualify as an explanation. Anton is now searching for some way to stave off the effects of aging and with the aid of scientists Dr. Rochelle (Ace Mask) and Dr. Lana Zurrell (Sarah Douglas), they have been combining genes from various swamp animals with human test subjects, creating monsters known as Un-Men.

Note: The script never identifies them as Un-Men, this is just another element that is borrowed from the comic books without much in the way of an explanation.

Turns out that these experiments are not going too well, certainly not helped by a "leech man" escaping and attacking a group of government agents who were looking for a moonshining operation in the swamp and drawing unwanted attention, but the key to the success seems to stem from the genetic make-up of Arcane’s late wife. How is this actually supposed to work, you ask? Haven’t a clue, the script keeps tossing in scientific gobbledygook at such a rapid pace in the hope that the viewer won’t figure out that none of this makes a lick of sense. Lucky for Arcane, his stepdaughter Abby (Heath Locklear) picks this moment to pay a visit and ask why she wasn’t invited to her mother’s funeral, Arcane being a dick the most likely reason, but it turns out that she has the same genetic make-up as her mother – because that’s how hereditary genes work – and she’s what required for Rochelle and Zurrell to complete the experiment that will make Arcane immortal.

 

What are the odds of James Bond showing up to foil this plot?

Meanwhile, Swamp Thing (Dick Durock) has been chilling in the swamp with seemingly no concern that Arcane has somehow risen from the grave and aside from tangling with the aforementioned leech-man a couple of times he really doesn’t seem all that worried about what Arcane is up to, that is until Abby shows up and activates his “swamp boner” and he has to put his superhero pants on to save her from the evil machinations of her stepfather. So yeah, the script certainly could have used a couple of more passes before the cameras started rolling, but not all of this was the fault of director Jim Wynorski as it was a mandate from the studio that at least one actor had to return for the sequel and the only one they could get was Louis Jordan, and while villains returning from the grave in a comic book story is nothing new it’s obvious that Wynorski didn’t really make much of an effort in having the return seem plausible or even remotely organic to the plot.

 

Clearly, the studio didn’t consider “man in the suit” Dick Durock as a returning actor.

Neither this nor Wes Craven’s film were all that faithful to source material but at least Wes seemed to be making a film that was somewhat in the same genre as the comic book, while in the case of The Return of Swamp Thing, we get a much campier and family-friendly version of Swamp Thing, one that is far removed from what was found in the original comic book or the contemporary take by Alan Moore and Stephen Bissette, which took the comic in an even darker direction than Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson did back in the 1970s. I will say that the monsters created by the effects team for this movie are quite good, and the suit for Swamp Thing is lightyears better than the one Durock was forced to wear back in 1982, but this is clearly not a horror movie and so we must suffer through the lovely Heather Locklear’s performance as a hippy-dippy florist and two local kids trying to snap a picture of Swamp Thing so that they can sell it to the tabloids.

 

“I’m Swamp Thing's love child.”

This is not to say that Wynorski and screenwriters completely ignored the comic books as this film’s 88-minute running time is liberally sprinkled with elements from the source, even using elements created by Alan Moore for Swamp Thing to make him an even greater threat such as being able to regrow himself after being blown up, sadly, this film fails to deliver an antagonist worthy of such a hero because despite a couple of tussles with Arcane’s Un-Men most of the action deals with Arcane’s security forces, who run around in orange sleeveless jumpsuits and have less accuracy with their firearms than your average Stormtrooper.  This results in a film that delivers no real challenge for ole Swampy to deal with, at least the original film had Swamp Thing battling a mutated Arcane while this film gives us a bunch of generic mercenaries and a couple of Un-Men he dispatches with relative ease.

 

When can we get this version of Arcane and his Un-Men?

I do appreciate that Abby is allowed to escape the typical damsel in distress trope at times, kneeing a captor in the groin and machine-gunning down dozens of incompetent henchmen with glee, but the film’s pathetic climax comes down to Swamp Thing marching into the mad science lab and throwing a chair at Arcane, taking him out in what is basically a “I’ve fallen down and I can’t get up” moment, which then leads to Swamp Thing simply picking up Abby’s lifeless body, having died due to Arcane stealing her life essence, and then marching off into the swamp so that he can resurrect as he did with Adrienne Barbeau in the original film. Wynorski can detonate all the explosions in the world during this climatic battle but it’s still a case of 'Sound and fury, signifying nothing' and it left me rather disappointed as this is the same director who gave us the incredibly fun Deathstalker II  and I know if unleashed he could have given us a really great comic book movie.

 

One cannot deny the fact that this film does look quite good at times.

Stray Observations:

• This movie may not be all that better of an adaptation than the Wes Craven film but the title sequence consists of Bernie Wrightson and Stephen Bissette cover art so that at least shows more love for the source material than the original film had.
• In the pre-credit sequence Swamp Thing saves a government agent from one of Arcane’s Un-Men after it had already killed two agents, but this raises the question, “Wouldn’t the government send in a task force to look for their missing men?” but all we get is a redneck sheriff questioning Arcane and that goes nowhere.
• This actress Sara Douglas’s second foray into live-action DC movies as she played the Kryptonian supervillain Ursa in the Richard Donner Superman movies.
• Arcane has a painted portrait of himself that reveals skeletal features when lightning flashes, and I have to wonder if he used the same decorator as the one from the Haunted Mansion in Disneyland.
• When Swamp Thing and the leech-like Un-Man fight with the steel poles we see them crackling lightning at each impact as if they were re-enacting the finale of The Highlander.
• Wynorski uses footage from the Wes Craven film for a flashback sequence but later when Swamp Thing gives Abby a tuber to eat, that will allow them to have hallucinogenic sex, we see Alec Holland in his human form but it’s not Ray Wise who played Holland in the original.
• Arcane has a parrot named Gigi, which is also the name of a musical starring Leslie Caron and Louis Jordan.
• Swamp Thing tells Abby that this part of the swamp is believed to be haunted by angry ghosts from a slave plantation, which is a reference to a Len Wein/Bernie Wrightson issue pf Swamp Thing where vengeful ghosts of African-American slaves possessed Arcane’s Un-Men and destroyed him.

 

“Alec, that sounds like a much better plot than the one we are currently stuck in.”

Is this a bad sequel? Absolutely not, there are some areas of definite improvement from the original, the Swamp Thing suit alone makes this entry more watchable, but it’s the script's campy humour that didn’t sit all that well with me – the two little kids that Swamp Thing keeps running into I found to be more annoying than funny – and Louis Jourdan was definitely in paycheck mode as he could barely bring enough energy to the role to be charismatically evil, instead, he came across as mostly bored and tired. Heather Locklear was fine as Abby Arcane, and as mentioned, she was given a couple of badass moments to give the character a bit of a kick, but no time was given to developing the relationship between her and Swamp Thing, which in the comics is Shakespearean in nature, and thus their “Happy Ever After” has no weight and I was left not caring or even interested in their future.

 

Once again, the suit is awesome I just wish it was in a better movie.

It wouldn’t be until 2019 that we get a more faithful incarnation of Swamp Thing but that was for the small screen and was criminally cancelled before the first season had even finished airing, and while Swamp Thing continues to show up in various DC animated movies I hold up hope that James Gunn will use some of his magic to bring one of my favourite comic characters back to the big screen.

The Colossus of New York (1958) – Review

The sight of a colossal robot threatening the local populace is not a unique idea in the world of science fiction, Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still being a prime example of this subject matter, but in 1958 producer William Alland tapped director Eugène Lourié to helm a science fiction film that dealt with a man’s brain being transplanted into the body of a rather scary looking robot. Yeah, we’re definitely treading into mad-science territory with this one.

This particular science fiction outing tackles the ideas of what it means to be human and the existence of the soul and follows the actions of noted brain surgeon William Spensser (Otto Kruger), who after the tragic death of his brilliant son, Jeremy Spensser (Ross Martin), a man who had just won the Nobel Peace Prize for his contributions towards solving world hunger, he decides that his son's gifts will not be denied to mankind.  This is on the heels of a discussion with "friend of the family" Dr. John Robert Carrington (Robert Hutton), who states that “It’s through the divine spark of the Creator, the interconnection of body and mind is achieved through the soul” while William counters with “Don’t speak to me of antiquated notions like a soul” and thus the theme of this movie is clumsily launched. Of course, when it comes to bringing the dead back to life even a brain surgeon needs a little help so he turns to his other son Henry (John Baragrey), who has always felt second class when compared to his genius brother, and he seems strangely enthusiastic about encasing his vaunted brother in a machine, “The brain of a genius operated by a push button.”

 

This is certainly a strange prequel to The Brain that Wouldn’t Die.

Before you can say "Frankenstein’s Monster" these two have plopped the brain of this departed genius inside an artificial, robotic body, which is achieved due to Henry’s familiarity and skills with automation, but this is all done without the knowledge of Jeremy’s wife Anne (Mala Powers), or his young son Billy (Charles Herbert), and William even goes so far as to tell a resurrected Jeremy that his wife and child are dead, but this secret doesn’t last long and before you know it the giant lumbering robot is wandering around the grounds befriending young Billy while terrorizing the distraught Anne. Things take an interesting turn when one night Jeremy gets a vision of two ships colliding at sea and it is later revealed that this event did happen and that Jeremy has developed some sort of extra-sensory perception, possibly to make up for his lack of smell, taste, and touch, but he is also slowly beginning to lose his humanity.

 

Who could have foreseen this turn of events? Oh, right, everybody!

This once kind and loving man starts to question the goals he once held dear and now posits to his father “Why create food for the maimed and the useless and the sick, why should we work to preserve the slum people of the world isn’t simpler and wiser to get rid of them instead?” He then points out that to make a better world they will first have to get rid of the humanitarians and idealists, who have been trying to keep “human trash” alive, and he demands that his father help him on this mission. Now that he is completely devoid of humanity the robot/Jeremy uses his newly developed ESP to hypnotize his father to bring his wife and child to the United Nations so that they can witness his cleansing of the world’s silly idealists, needless to say, things don’t go as planned as Billy is able to reach his father, who is then able to restore his self-control and asks for his son to switch him off, but not before we get some cool death ray action and the murdering of several United Nation’s delegates.

 

Ending world hunger is a thankless job.

Stray Observations:

• Henry invented a heat-sensing detector that revolutionizes the automation industry, to which his brother comments, “Fantastic, you create any more like this and you will put the human race out of business” Which is a weird sentiment and kind of puts Jeremy in the “Pro-Skynet” category.
• With Jeremy barely cold, Henry starts making moves on the widow and we immediately start the egg timer for his inevitable comeuppance at the hands of a killer robot.
• I will give it that William Spensser is a world-class brain surgeon but creating a life-support system and interface device for a “living brain” is a whole other matter, which one would assume takes a degree of knowledge not normally taught in medical school.
• Anne is upset that John doesn’t believe her about seeing a monstrous creature with glowing eyes but later when the police question her about the numerous sightings of a large mechanical man, she denies seeing it, and we must ask why? There is no reason for her to be part of her grandfather’s cover-up.
• Jeremy uses his hypnotic ability to force his father to lure Henry to the East River so that he can murder the bastard for moving in on his wife, and I’m left wondering if they built the robot with death lasers or if he somehow developed them along with his ESP.

 

This is why you don’t put a living brain inside a giant killing machine.

Even if you look past the religious arguments pertaining to the "Creator" and the soul, Willis Goldbeck's story the screenplay by Thelma Moss for The Colossus of New York does give an interesting take on what would happen if a person’s brain had been deposited inside a machine that would basically cut him off from all that makes him human and the idea that this would turn him into an emotionless monster, getting extra superpowers notwithstanding, but while this is handled surprisingly well the film also doesn’t have much time to really explore it properly. With only 70 minutes to tell its story it's a hard sell for this script to cover everything properly, especially when the plot is not only full of philosophical ideas but must also include a slimy brother, a fainting damsel and a precocious kid, which makes the film's conclusion feel a little abrupt.

 

“I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”

This unique take on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a fascinating little entry in the genre and the robot constructed for the film, with the aid of make-up artist Wally Westmore, has a look more akin to that of the Golem of Jewish folklore than your typical robot found in science fiction offerings of the time, and it is certainly not as personable as Robby the Robot nor quite as imposing as Gort. Actor Ross Martin isn’t given much to do before having his brain stuffed into the robot, later stuck giving a monotoned voice-over as the Colossus while actor Ed Wolff takes over as the lumbering giant for the bulk of the movie, but Otto Kruger shines as a man obsessed at continuing the legacy of son no matter the cost and while his realization comes a little late, after a significant death toll, it is both poignant as well as tragic. Overall, The Colossus of New York is an enjoyable science fiction film that brings a little philosophy to the table as well as a cool-looking robot.

Battle of the Worlds (1961) – Review

When it comes to alien invasion films Hollywood has a few good examples under their belt, with George Pal’s adaptation of War of the Worlds and Ray Harryhausen’s Earth vs. the Flying Saucers being particularly good entries, but in 1961 moviegoers were treated to a science fiction adventure film from Italy, one where mankind would not be forced to fight the alien invaders on their own turf but up there in the stars.

Science fiction films that center on outer space adventures have always been a mixed bag as they range from lavish productions like Forbidden Planet to insanely low-budget offerings such as the laughably bad Fire Maidens of Outer Space, and while Antonio Margheriti’s Battle of the Worlds definitely skews towards the latter it was also produced for the same amount of money that a larger Hollywood film would normally spend on catering.  There is at least a modicum of effort put into the creation of a future where space exploration has taken several leaps forward and for that, the filmmakers deserve some praise. The plot of this film is nothing special, typical science fiction nonsense about a rogue planet being discovered by an observatory, which the eccentric Professor Benson (Claude Rains) calls “The Outsider,” and the dealings with its apparent collision course with the Earth. Benson is your typical eccentric scientist, one of the types who will go off on some wild scientific tangents at the drop of a hat, but he is the one that has figured out that “The Outsider” is not going to hit the Earth but simply make a close pass.

 

Why Benson works out of a greenhouse is never explained.

Needless to say, the rest of the scientific community is less inclined to put their faith in the ravings of a man who works out his calculations on the side of clay flowerpots, of course, he turns out to be right, well, he’s sort of right. The rogue celestial does not, in fact, collide with the Earth but it doesn’t pass by, instead, it takes up an orbit 95 miles above our blue-green home. Benson concludes that “The Outsider” must be controlled by an alien intelligence so he calls upon the world's scientific governing council to destroy it without delay, but as he is this film’s Don Quixote he is ignored. This sets into motion a series of arguments and “action” moments with fellow astronomer Dr. Fred Steele (Umberto Orsini), who is dating Benson’s secretary Eve Barnett (Maya Brent) being forced to team up with Mars base Commander Robert Cole (Bill Carter) and his wife Cathy (Jacqueline Derval) as well as the observatory’s resident psychic Mrs. Collins (Carol Danell), not to mention a half-dozen or so talking heads who represent the Earth’s illustrious ruling bodies, but when an exploratory mission to “The Outsider” results in a number of flying saucers to emerge from beneath the planet's surface, destroying the Earth vessels, our heroes know they are in trouble.

 

That this space battle is less than awe-inspiring goes without saying.

What follows is a lot of silliness punctuated by philosophical debates that lead to Benson demanding complete and utter control of the world’s forces so as to deal with the threat, and while he is once again ignored he is able to gain some pollical clout when he discovers the musical language of the aliens and is able to use this to order the flying saucers to self-destruct.  While the world leaders still ignore the advice of Benson, who wants to learn the secrets of this alien race, this conflict does lead us to the film’s most interesting element, a visit inside the world of “The Outsider” as our team of misfits venture across space and into the bowels of an alien planet, and it's here where we get the startling revelation that the alien race inhabiting this roaming planet has been dead for some time, that the flying saucers were part of an automated system that the long-dead alien race put in place to help them find a new world in which to live.

 

“I bet these aliens didn’t even leave a forwarding address.”

Stray Observations:

• Having recently played the grumpy Professor Challenger in the 1960 version of The Lost World the producers of this film thought he’d be perfect to play the part of the equally grumpy Professor Benson, and they were right as his character is what breathes little life is to be found in what is an overall dull affair.
• The 1951 classic When Worlds Collide dealt with a planet hurtling on a collision course with a doomed Earth, in the case of this film it would have been better off if Earth had been destroyed as humanity in this setting doesn’t look worth saving.
• The 1955 film King Dinosaur also dealt with a rogue planet entering our solar system but where that planet was full of dinosaurs the one in this film just had a bunch of pesky aliens.
• Professor Benson was aware of “The Outsider” for five days but didn’t tell anyone because he wanted to wait to see how long it would take his idiot staff to discover it, this I find to be a rather lackadaisical and dangerous attitude towards science and Earth’s protection.
• Steele is concerned that the rogue planet is too big to burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere which left wondering “What kind of planet would be small enough to burn up in our atmosphere?” I doubt anyone involved here made it through a grade-six science class.
• The scientific community ignores Benson’s calls to destroy “The Outsider” when it takes up orbit around the Earth, deeming this act too dangerous, but what about the cataclysmic new gravitational forces that a planet-sized body orbiting Earth would create? Eventually, the phantom planet begins spiralling inward toward the Earth, creating hurricanes and storms, but our planet would have been doomed long before that.
• Benson discovers a way to defeat the invaders by using a sound frequency that can disrupt their computer-controlled ships, which is a little too close to how the alien ships were destroyed in the film Earth vs. the Flying Saucers.
• The original Italian title was “The Planet of Extinct Men” which pretty much gives away the film’s startling third-act revelation.

 

“I defy the need for spoiler warnings!”

The only real reason to watch Battle of the Worlds is to experience the wonderfully over-the-top and pure bombastic performance by Claude Rains whose exorbitant take on a man “obsessed with the truth” overshadows the film’s cheap sets and overwrought melodrama and is what brings the entire proceedings up to the level of it being almost a science fiction opera. What is disappointing, aside from rather cheap-looking sets and too many scenes of people nattering as if we’ve walked into a movie that is ”already in progress” is that fact you’d think a production based in Italy would have some sense of fashion but the women in this movie dress in outfits that look like a cross between garbage bags and the lead apron you wear at the dentist.

 

 

“Professor, I’m turning myself over to the Fashion Police.”

Now, it’s hard to criticize the acting in a film where most of it is dubbed by other actors, Claude Rains is the one actor who spared this, but even by the standards found in a Toho Godzilla film the acting here is godawful and I swear someone must have either handed the voice-actors pages without any direction at all, or they were told to deliver each line as flat as possible. That is not to say that there aren’t praiseworthy elements in Battle of the Worlds, as mentioned Claude Rains gives a very enjoyable turn as a crotchety scientist and the atonal score by composer Mario Migliardi is quite good, and while the sets and costumes are threadbare and cheesy Antonio Margheriti’s direction and Marcello Masciocchi excellent cinematography work to instill some sense of futuristic wonder to this story, how far they succeeded is up to you the viewer to decide.

The Boy Who Cried Werewolf (2010) – Review

Remaking a classic horror film is nothing new and has brought such classics as John Carpenter’s The Thing and David Cronenberg’s The Fly, but while those films were remakes of true classics of the genre the one we are looking at today is, at best, an in-name-only remake of the 1973 film The Boy Who Cried Werewolf, a movie which I seriously doubt anyone in Nickelodeon’s target demographic had even heard of.

The plot of this film centers around 17-year-old nerdy Jordan Sands (Victoria Justice) who can’t get a date to the prom because she wears glasses and has a ponytail, which is a standard trope and still incredibly stupid, and she is constantly annoyed by her 14-year-old brother Hunter (Chase Ellison) who is continually pulling off goofy and gory pranks at home and at school, then we have their recently widowed father (Matt Winston) who is struggling to make ends meet and thus he has no time for dating or wondering why his son is such a twit. So what we have here is your basic family drama and not a particularly good one, but then there is a ray of hope in the form of their mother's great uncle Dragomir Vukovic who has died and left them his castle in Wolfsberg, Romania, and before you can say “Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!”our trio is flying across the Atlantic to claim their prize.

Note: This family is broke and is about to lose their own house so even though the dad plans to sell this castle as soon as possible, what would the estate tax be on something like this?

Upon arriving, Hunter learns about the "Wolfsberg Beast" a monster that is rumoured to be the protector of both the castle and the town, while Jordon falls in love with the local butcher, Goran (Steven Grayham) because we have to have some teen romance, and even the dad seems to be getting some action as bubbly real estate agent Paulina von Eckberg (Brooke D'Orsay) may be interested in other things than just selling their castle. Things really get interesting when, while looking for the castle’s internet router, Jordan and Hunter stumble across a secret laboratory, and while messing around she steps on a broken vial of blood that just so happens to be lycanthrope blood. The next day Jordan is suddenly no longer a vegetarian and is relishing the fact that she now has heightened senses and incredible physical attributes – I’m not sure what part of the wolf gives you gymnastic skills but she becomes a wiz at the parallel bars – and this really makes Hunter concerned, especially with his friends point out that the only solution to this particular problem is to shoot her with a silver bullet. This is clearly not an option “I can’t shoot my sister. Do you know how much trouble I’d get in?” Lucky for Hunter and Jordan the castle’s creepy housekeeper, Madame Varcolac (Brooke Shields), knows a thing or two about werewolves.

 

I’m pretty sure this type of housekeeper comes with all European castles.

We learn from Madame Varcolac that the late Dragomir was also a werewolf and was actually the famed "Wolfsberg Beast" and this "curse" has allowed the Vukovic line of werewolves to keep the world safe from the rise of vampires all these years.  Then in a twist that will shock no one, it is revealed that Paulina is actually a vampire and she is leading a coven of vampires in a bid to take over Vukovic Manor – why this is important for vampire dominance I have no idea – but she must kill Jordan first, as she is unable to take the castle as long as any Dragomir's werewolf relatives are alive. Basically, take all that werewolf/vampire lore from the Underworld movies and strip it down to “vampires hate werewolves” and you get the jest of this movie’s plot. The climax has Jordan and Hunter, who are now both werewolves because it turns out that Hunter is a werewolf himself, and the two siblings fight the Vampires until daybreak which leads to the evil bloodsuckers being killed by the sunlight.  To say the final battle was a little underwhelming would be a vast understatement as both werewolves and vampires come across as really bad fighters.

 

“Can someone get Kate Beckinsale on the line?”

Stray Observations:

• This movie trots out the classic cliché of the nerdy girl in glasses and a ponytail who the guys ignore despite her being incredibly attractive, this one really needs to be given a rest no one is buying it.
• This movie also gives us the standard nerdy boy who is interested in monsters and gore, a trope that has been seen in such films as Salem’s Lot and The Deadly Spawn.
• Whenever someone says Madame Varcolac’s name we hear a wolf howl in the distance, an obvious nod to Frau Blücher the housekeeper from Young Frankenstein.
• While exploring Dragomir's lab, which is of course located behind a bookcase, Jordan and Hunter hide when Madame Varcolac enters, but why hide, doesn’t this place belong to them now?
• When Jordon arrives on her date dressed to the nines and looking gorgeous, Goran’s first reaction is puzzlement and concern, asking her “Are you alright?” This has me wondering, don’t girls in Romania dress up for a date or does Goran just have a “nerd girl” fetish?
• Jordan tells Hunter that she ate a wild boar when she was in werewolf form, but do werewolves have some kind of super metabolism because boars weigh up to 190 pounds and she doesn't seem to be showing that extra weight in the morning? Werewolves are typically depicted as mindless animals, yet Hunter believes his sister won’t try and eat him, which shows he has a surprisingly strong belief in familial ties, that or he suffers from an extreme case of denial and stupidity.
• Hunter becomes a werewolf simply by turning 14, unlike Jordan who needed to be infected, and this is due to the fact that Hunter is part of the bloodline which makes him a true descendant, unlike Jordan. But wait a minute, aren’t Jordan and Hunter siblings, don’t they share the same bloodline?
• Paulina makes a silver bullet to kill Jordan but when Hunter transforms into a werewolf she just runs away, did she forget she was holding a gun that could kill a werewolf?

 

Maybe fangs interfere with your short-term memory.

Despite being called The Boy Who Cried Werewolf we don’t get Hunter running around claiming there is a werewolf in their midst, in fact, he not only keeps his sister’s affliction on the “down-low” but he also tries to help her find a cure, which is kind of sweet and it does take the werewolf genre in a new and interesting direction, also, by having the central character be the one who is turning into a werewolf, unlike the 1973 version, which had the dad turning into a murderous beast, in this film, the lycanthropes are of a more heroic nature, which is a nice twist on the genre. The special effects to create the werewolves are fairly good, especially considering this is a Nickelodeon made-for-television movie and not something intended for theatrical release, and with the likes of make-effects wizards like Greg Nicotero bringing the werewolves to life, you know the end product will at least be decent. And while this film is not on par with something like The Howling it is a solid effort for what is basically a “family-friendly” horror movie.

 

Note: Some shots certainly work better than others.

Overall, this is an entertaining horror/comedy that can be enjoyed by the whole family and while the story doesn’t tread any new ground there are some great visual effects to be had and the cast all give solid performances, with Brooke Shields stealing every scene as the creepy housekeeper, making this a fun film for the younger crowd and while still being good enough to amuse even the parents.

Scooby-Doo! in Arabian Nights (1994) – Review

In the history of Scooby-Doo movies, which does cover a lot of ground, Scooby-Doo! in Arabian Nights has two very key noteworthy points, number one being that this would be the last movie production to be produced by its original creators at Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, afterwards, they would be produced by Warner Bros. Animation, and secondly, this is barely a Scooby-Doo movie as Scooby and Shaggy only appear in the short framing sequences as this entry is more of a Yogi Bear and Magilla Gorilla movie than it is a Scooby-Doo one.

This last of the Hanna-Barbera Scooby-Doo movies was loosely based on the Middle Eastern folk tales collected in the book One Thousand and One Arabian Nights but where in the book, Scheherazade told numerous tales to stave off her execution, in this television special we have Shaggy in drag as a harem girl telling only two stories to the Caliph in the hope that he will fall asleep so that he and Scooby can escape.  So what we have here is not so much One Thousand and One Arabian Nights but something more akin to One Arabian Nap. The basic set-up to this television special deals with Shaggy (Casey Kasem) and Scooby-Doo (Don Messick) arriving in Arabia via magic carpet to apply for the job of royal food taster and because this is Shaggy and Scooby they misunderstand the point of this job, that it is to “taste test” for poison and not eat the entire meal, which infuriates the Royal Chef (Greg Burson) and angers the Caliph (Eddie Deezen) to the point where he orders his guards to kill them.

 

“Could, like, someone call Fred, Daphne or Velma?”

This is when the “anthology” part kicks in with Shaggy and Scooby fleeing for their lives, and our intrepid beatnik is forced to disguise himself as a harem girl to save his neck, unfortunately, the Caliph had also been looking for a bride and immediately falls in love with the disguised Shaggy and decides that they shall be married, and this leads to Shaggy telling him “classic tales” that with any luck will put the Caliph to sleep and allow them to escape, of course, the only danger here is putting any older viewers to sleep because the two following tales are less than engaging and not all that funny. The first offering is a new take on the story of Aladdin, and while not actually part of the original book of One Thousand and One Arabian Nights it is probably one of the best-known tales, but the people over at Hanna-Barbera aren’t just pilfering classic stories for their cartoon they also pilfer the hell out of Disney's 1992 Aladdin as many elements found here are from the Disney version, only in this outing instead of Robin Williams as the Genie we get Yogi Bear.

 

“I’m smarter than your average genie.”

The only real interesting thing about this take on Aladdin is that they gender-swap the title character so instead of a male street rat named Aladdin we have a young woman named Aliyah-Din (Jennifer Hale) who is “Pure of Heart” and the only one who can enter the “Cave of Wonders” to retrieve the magic lamp for the evil Vizier (John Kassir), who of course wants to use the lamp to overthrow the Sultan (Brian Cummings) but of course, things go wrong, such as Aliyah-Din picking up unlicensed treasure while in the cave, which causes the Vizier goes to plan “B” and drugs the Sultan, puts the Prince (Rob Paulsen) under a spell and then drags him down to dungeons before taking on the Prince's appearance. Meanwhile, back at the Cave of Wonders, Aliyah-Din finds and rubs the lamp which releases the Genie/Yogi Bear (Greg Burson) and his sidekick Boo-Boo (Don Messick), a Genie-in-training, who reveals to Aliyah-Din that she is their new master and that they are allowed to grant her three wishes. What follows should be familiar to all of you, Aliyah-Din wishing to be a Princess and the Grand Vizier getting a hold of the lamp and wishing for ultimate power, all the while being peppered with the standard Yogi Bear being obsessed with food jokes.

 

“How would you like a pic-a-nic basket?”

Aside from the aforementioned gender swap, there is nothing to be found in this version of Aladdin that is all that noteworthy, but at least it's short enough that one doesn’t really have enough time to get bored, the same cannot be said of the next tale offered by Shaggy, which is that of Sinbad the Sailor, being played by Magilla Gorilla (Allan Melvin) as a simple-minded goof who mistakes a pirate ship for a cruise ship, and the maniacal little pirate captain (Charlie Adler) takes advantage of Magilla's naivete by pretending to be a Cruise Director and tries to pass off various thefts as being part of a scavenger hunt, needless to say, this is incredibly dumb and comes across more like a bad Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam cartoon and nothing like a Magilla Gorilla one, or a Sinbad the Sailor tale for that matter, which is what this cartoon was supposedly trying to parody. Aside from the appearance of the legendary Roc and them trying to steal a golden toothbrush from a hygiene-obsessed cyclops there really isn’t much on display that could make anyone mistake this for a Sinbad story from One Thousand and One Arabian Nights and it's all rather forgettable and unfunny.

 

The writers were clearly between a Roc and a hard place.

Stray Observations:

• As Shaggy and Scooby only exist as a framing device there is no mystery-solving theme, something that the franchise was famous for, instead, what we get is a lame Yogi Bear cartoon and an even lamer Magilla Gorilla adventure.
• One element that does survive is Shaggy and Scooby dressing up in some form of disguise to outwit their current nemesis, sadly, it is not to fool a ghost or monster just an idiot Caliph.
• As we pan across the Caliph’s harem, we see one of the harem girls reading the book One Thousand and One Arabian Nights. Can we assume this Scheherazade and that Shaggy and Scooby's shenanigans earned her a night off?
• No explanation is given as to why most of the people in this movie are depicted as somewhat Arabic looking while the Caliph is decidedly white and looks and sounds like Eddie Deezen.
• Aliyah-Din runs off when she sees the Prince watching her, leaving her scarf behind, and thus the Prince then begins the search for his one true love, which left me wondering if the writers of this show understood how the story of Cinderella worked.
• Boo-Boo makes all the candidates for the Prince’s hand vanish in a cute lift from Disney’s Mary Poppins, where in that film she blew away all the prospective nannies with a strong wind.
• To reach the nest of the Roc, Magilla, aka Sinbad the Sailor, simply walks up a sheer cliff face, and I think the writers have mistaken the abilities of a gorilla with that of a spider.
• Later, when stealing the Golden Toothbrush, Magilla is unable to scale a similar cliff face and I think we’ve mistaken the people behind this thing for being writers of any kind.
• Not satisfied with just ripping off Disney movies the writers of this thing have our characters take a trip through a knock-off version of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

 

“We pillage plunder, we rifle and loot, a writer’s life for me!”

Not only was this Scooby-Doo outing very disappointing – and not just for the lack of Scooby-Doo – it was also the last time Don Messick would voice Scooby due to his death in 1997 and that is a sour note for such a great voice actor to go out on, but what is more disheartening is that Scooby-Doo! in Arabian Nights it ended the run that included Boo Brothers, Ghoul School and The Reluctant Werewolf and its flat animation style failed to properly capture what a tale from One Thousand and One Arabian Nights should have strived for, in conclusion, this last of the Hanna-Barbera Scooby-Doo productions was a sad swan song that is best forgotten, but at least it did make way for offerings from Warner Bros. Animation and Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island.

Scooby-Doo! And Krypto, Too! (2023) – Review

Many fans of Scooby-Doo were saddened to hear of several projects being cancelled during the Warner Bros/Discovery tax write-off purge, including the animated feature Scooby-Doo! Holiday Haunt as well as the live-action Batgirl movie, and while those cancellations left many in mourning at least one item seems to have escaped the chopping block by being leaked online, a movie that would send the Scooby gang in search of the Justice League.

“Who do you call when your heroes need heroes?” This is the question that Jimmy Olsen (James Arnold Taylor) poses to Lois Lane (Tara Strong) as the “Mystery of the Missing Justice League” kicks off because after finding the Hall of Justice trashed and inhabited by a fiery phantom, these intrepid Daily Planet staffers turn to the only other group that could find answers, and no I don’t mean the Justice Society or The Doom Patrol or even the Suicide Squad, they go to the best of the best, Mystery Incorporated. Lois asks Jimmy to call his girlfriend, who it seems is none other than Daphne Blake (Grey Griffin), the redheaded member of the Scooby gang – a relationship status that comes as a complete surprise to Daphne who last saw Jimmy at summer camp when they were both nine – but other than telling Daphne that “We’ve got a mystery to solve” he must have skipped the details on the extent of their problem, so when the Mystery Machine rolls into Metropolis they are quite shocked to see a variety of supervillains trashing the city.

 

Could this devilish pair be involved?

When the gang arrives at the Daily Planet Lois informs them that the reason they’ve been called in is that "Metropolis has gone positively Gotham since the Justice League disappeared a few months ago” to which Fred (Frank Welker) rightfully points out “What does a team of renowned investigative journalist need with a gang of meddling kids?” This is a fair question, something you’ll ask yourself multiple times while watching this movie, but Velma (Kate Micucci) realizes more must be going on than what appears and she is proven right when Lois reveals that the Hall of Justice seems to be haunted by a phantom, and before Fred can say “We have a mystery on our hands” the gang is off and running to save the day, despite a reluctant Shaggy (Matthew Lillard) and Scooby-Doo (Frank Welker) who are not too keen on phantoms, fiery or otherwise, and to say the Scooby gang is out of their league would be a rather large understatement.

 

“Excuse me, most of these guys don’t even wear masks to pull off.”

When they arrive at the Hall of Justice they are greeted by Mayor Fleming (Nicole Thurman) who had started offering tours of the Hall when the Justice League vanished, hoping that “Being in these hallowed halls will give people hope that one day our heroes may return, but ever since this “phantom” showed up fewer and fewer people want to visit this place.” Enter Lex Luthor (Charles Halford), his assistant Mercy Graves (Victoria Grace), and his dog Rex Luthor, and we learn from Fleming that Luthor has been “Pressuring the Mayor’s Office to seize the Hall of Justice as abandoned property and put it up for auction where he can get it at a steal.” That certainly does give him a strong motive for driving away tourism, but are there any other suspects of note?

 

“I bet the Wonder Twins are somehow behind all of this?”

We do get a couple of other suspects tossed in for good measure, but they don’t come off as plausible culprits, such as the lunch truck lady who is angry about not being allowed to serve food outside of the Hall of Justice and the guy in charge of valet parking, who is tired of parking super-vehicles and misses just ordering cars, seems even less likely, basically, neither of these two screams criminal mastermind. The rest of the movie follows your typical Scooby-Doo mystery with the gang separating up to look for clues, with the real bonus being all the wonderful DC Superhero Easter Eggs that practically litter every frame, and I particularly loved when we got the standard Scooby-Doo chase montage and that had Shaggy and Scooby ending up on Flash’s Cosmic Treadmill, which took them on a quick journey through time, and that is but one of many great moments that fills up the 78-minute running time. Of course, the gang eventually does team up with Krypto the Super Dog and that’s when then things get tense as the Hall of Justice goes into lockdown mode and the danger mounts.

 

Damn, I really wonder who could be behind all of this?

Stray Observations:

• Seriously, Lois Lane couldn’t think of anybody else to call other than the Scooby gang? If a supernatural entity was involved I’d immediately think of Doctor Fate or John Constantine, not four kids and a dog.
• Scooby-Doo makes the understandable mistake of confusing Solomon Grundy with their old foe The Creeper.
• Lois Lane and Jimmy cannot recognize Velma when she isn’t wearing glasses, a nice nod to their inexplicable inability to not realize Superman and Clark Kent are not one and the same person.
• If the Justice League has been missing for months how is this a surprise to the Scooby gang? Were they solving a mystery off-planet during all this time?
• Shaggy and Scooby find a food truck outside the Hall of Justice called “Challenge of the Superfries” which is a super great pun and had me laughing out loud.
• Shaggy, Scooby and Krypto find themselves trapped in a Justice League Holodeck, and if I learned nothing from watching Star Trek: The Next Generation it's that those things always malfunctioning.
• Lex gives his classic speech about "land" from Superman: The Movie “Son, stocks may rise and fall, utilities and transportation systems may collapse. People are no damn good, but they will always need land and they’ll pay through the nose to get it.”  Basically, it's clear from almost frame one that the writers of this movie have a love for the history of the DC characters and are not afraid to show it.

 

As mysteries go, this wasn’t a hard one to figure out.

Now, it’s fair to say that the Scooby-Doo mysteries have never been of Agatha Christie calibre but that has never been a selling point or even a key ingredient to this franchise – the show’s target audience remains children so no one should expect an intricate plot – as the Scooby-Doo shows and movies have all been about the comedy and fun dynamic amongst the group, and whatever guest star they hook up with, and this time out we get bonus humour stemming from Fred becoming jealous of Daphne’s past with Jimmy Olsen as well his insistence on wearing one of Batman’s utility belt – which is useless until Daphne puts it on – and the final confrontation is both action-packed and hilarious.

 

“Mister Kent, you wouldn’t believe the day we’ve had.”

Overall, Scooby-Doo! and Krypto, Too! is a top-tier entry among the Scooby-Doo movies, the animation is fresh and vibrant and the aforementioned superhero Easter Eggs are a treat for comic book fans, and even if the mystery isn’t all that mysterious the interactions between our heroes and the various villains more than makes up for it – Luthor constantly getting lost and being hung up on his past presidency provided some really good laughs – and the pairing of Scooby-Doo and Krypto couldn’t have been more perfect.

Of course, the real crime has nothing to do with the abduction of Justice League but with Warner Bros/Discovery shelving this gem and forcing fans to jump through hoops to find a copy to watch, someone should stick those executives in the Phantom Zone, but hey, with this leak happening we can hope that maybe someday the Batgirl movie will see the light of day.

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) – Review

Filmmaker Russ Meyer is known for writing and directing a series of sexploitation films throughout the late 60s and into 1970s that utilized campy humour to satirize the status quo and pop culture of the time, which he did fairly well, but when one thinks of Russ Meyer it’s hard to correlate the fact that one of his most outlandish entries was also co-written by none other than Roger Ebert, yes, that Robert Ebert, this future Pulitzer prize-winning film critic co-wrote a film that literally brimmed with gratuitous nudity, sadistic violence and outrageous acts of pure hedonism, a movie that Ebert's future co-host Gene Siskel would give a rating of zero out of four stars. How is that for a recommendation?

In 1967 Twentieth Century Fox released a lavish adaptation of Jacqueline Susann’s novel Valley of the Dolls and despite it being a very poorly reviewed movie it was a box office, surprise surprise, so with that success the idea of a sequel was brought to the powers that be, yet Russ Meyer’s Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is not that sequel, though it was originally intended to be a straightforward sequel, and author Jacqueline Susann had even come up with the title and a script by Jean Holloway was commissioned, but that was soon abandoned as the studio quickly turned to Russ Meyer, whose recent movie Vixen! had been a massive commercial success, and with Roger Ebert on board to work on the script history was made.

 

“Wait, who needs a plot when we have sex and pot?”

In what Roger Ebert claims is “The first rock horror exploitation musical” Beyond the Valley of the Dolls tells the story of a rock band consisting of three young women, Kelly MacNamara (Dolly Read), Casey Anderson (Cynthia Myers), and Petronella "Pet" Danforth (Marcia McBroom) who along with their manager Harris Allsworth (David Gurian) leave their smalltown lives and venture into the dangerous wilds of Los Angeles to become rich and famous, or at least that was the plan. The girls get the standard “Rich and Famous” contract from the insanely flamboyant rock producer Ronnie "Z-Man" Barzell (John LaZar) and before you can say “This is my happening and it freaks me out!” the girls find themselves in all sorts of trouble. As this is a Russ Meyer film the story mainly exists to support his completely unbiased love of large bosoms and this film does not shy away from revealing that certain portion of the female anatomy in all its glory.

 

Be warned, this film does not play with subtleties.

As in the Jacqueline Susann novel, this movie is all about sex, drugs and rock and roll but where the original Valley of the Dolls didn’t really have much in the way of rock and roll it did take a hard view of the music scene, and with this taking place in the late 60s there was a lot to lampoon when it comes to the excess and indulgences of the music industry in this “totally not a sequel” – please don't sue us but we know you obviously will – as we have Kelly being seduced by Lance Rocke (Michael Blodgett), a high-priced gigolo with eyes on Kelly’s possible inheritance, money that she may be getting from her rich aunt Susan Lake (Phyliss Davis) the heiress to a family fortune, while also fending off accusations of the same by her aunt’s lecherous lawyer Porter Hall (Duncan McLeod) who, and for some most likely insane reason, seduces into her bed.

 

Strangely, he doesn’t seem all that into a hot woman fondling his junk.

Meanwhile, Casey’s life is spiralling out of control as he gets hooked on pills and alcohol which results in her getting pregnant while stoned out of her mind – this occurs when a dejected Harris, who after being called a faggot by a porn star crashes at her place for some solace but takes advantage of her instead – she later has a warm and loving affair with lesbian fashion designer Roxanne (Erica Gavin) but that also ends badly, and I mean really badly. Even sweet Pet has a bit of a rough go of it because even though she falls in love with law student Emerson Thorne (Harrison Page), who is one of the rare nice and decent guys in this movie but she cheats on him with Randy Black (James Iglehart), a violent prize fighter and this film’s Muhammad Ali analog, who beats up Emerson and tries to run him down with a car.  Throughout the movie relationships change and clash, even Aunt Susan gets a love interest in a rekindled romance with an old flame (Charles Napier), with the film's volatile moments switching on a dime to colourful "love in" moments in a manner only possible through the lens of Russ Meyer.

 

A typical day hanging out in Hollywood.

It's true that this movie doesn't have much in the way of Hallmark moments but with Russ Meyer’s quick cutting, Dutch angles and some quite solid cinematography it’s one of the best-looking “skin flicks” out there and I challenge anyone to find a more interesting, if not satirical looking vision of this point in history. It’s clear that Meyer was parodying the Hollywood scene of the 60s but one doesn’t have to squint too hard to believe that these weird characters aren’t too far off the mark when it comes to depicting the attitudes that surrounded this particular time and place even if it's through a somewhat hyperbolic lens. Were there really Hollywood orgies where the participants dressed up in superhero costumes? Sure, maybe, who knows, but I’d bet this is closer to the truth than we could ever possibly imagine.

 

“Holy girl-on-girl action, Batman!”

Stray Observations:

• Unlike the original film, there is no “virginal” character to be corrupted by showbusiness as our three leads start out being all about free love and drugs.  Now, one can say they go further down the rabbit hole once in California but they were never naïve innocents.
• This film came out the same year that the cartoon Josie and the Pussycats debuted and they both deal with a female rock band and a hunky road manager, and now having seen a redheaded Dolly Read tolling around in a "Mystery Machine" I wish we'd got see her play Daphne in a Scooby-Doo movie.
• The flamboyant party thrown by rock producer Ronnie "Z-Man" Barzell is edited together like a montage sequence from the variety show Laugh-In, with quick cutting to guests popping off wacky one-liners.
• David Gurian looks so much like Paul Rudd that I have to wonder if they are actually the same person and that he just changed his name to hide that he is, in fact, immortal.
• The film’s last act revolves around a “Big Reveal” surrounding Z-Man sexual identity and his cries of “I am Superwoman!” puts this movie so far over the politically incorrect line that you can’t see it with a telescope.

 

Someone clearly hadn’t set up a safe word before playtime started.

Russ Meyer’s Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is a brilliant parody of the 60s drug and sex culture with the wise choice of everyone in the cast playing it “straight” and not winking at the camera, the script is full of high melodrama that constantly swings to absurd levels – from Pet and Emerson running through a field in slow motion as if they were in a feminine hygiene commercial to the climax of the film turning into a horrible gruesome homage to the Manson Family murders – and the cast of relative unknowns was left uncertain as whether their dialogue was intended to be comic or not, which made everything that much funnier.  While this film is ostensibly a parody it does have its incredibly dark moments to balance out the extremely goofy and bizarre elements but even these darker elements are heightened and off-balanced.

 

Picture the Adam West Batman series only with a lot of sex and violence.

This is certainly not a film for everyone, it’s just too far out and weird to please the average moviegoer, but say what you will about Russ Meyer's sensibilities because while his films may seem to be the blatant sexual exploitation of women that is actually far from the case as in almost all his films it's the ladies who are being depicted as the strong and aggressive type while the men are more often than not the passive ones or even emasculated, a dynamic not shared by many filmmakers during this time period.  If you have seen  Beyond the Valley of the Dolls in the past but didn't like it I suggest you give it another try as each subsequent viewing will most likely unpack a little more of Meyer and Ebert’s unbridled madness and draw you into this world of sin and debauchery, and what do you have to lose but your sanity?

Velma (2023) – Review

With this series, HBO Max attempts to capture the adult edge that made their Harley Quinn series so popular but right out of the gate they had to deal with angry Scooby-Doo fans who were already pissed that HBO had cancelled the animated movie Scooby-Doo! Holiday Haunt, and instead, were launching a new series that would not include the cowardly canine at all, something even a non-fan would expect to find in a show featuring the Scooby gang and overcoming that would be a tough hill to climb, sadly, the writers of this show quickly succumbed to altitude sickness.

It should be noted that the absence of Scooby-Doo was not due to any moronic judgement by the show’s writers but due to the fact that this series was going to be adult-orientated so the studio mandated that Scooby himself would never appear.  Now, if a lack of Scooby-Doo had been the only problem with this series we’d be laughing, unfortunately, this thing was a tonal mess from frame one and went from “cleverly” mocking of standard television tropes to lame tired jokes that wouldn’t get a tween to laugh, all within the span of the first few minutes of the very first episode. It’s clear from the beginning that the writers of this show must have thought gore and “edgy humour" automatically equalled appealing to an adult audience, who I think was their target demographic but that's just me guessing, and that telling a compelling story with good characters wasn’t all that important. Having watched the first season of this show it’s safe to assume that writers must have suffered massive brain injuries to think anything that followed was funny.

 

I bet the writers could really relate to the missing brain plot element.

So what exactly is this show about? This series is to be taken as a prequel to Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! because it works towards answering the question “How did the Scooby gang get together to solve mysteries?” a question not needed answering if you’ve watched the series A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, but as there has never been any type of solid continuity between runs of Scooby-Doo this was not necessarily a bad thing, on the other hand, turning most of the cast into insufferable unlikable characters was, in fact, a very bad thing. The plot for season one deals with the mystery surrounding the disappearance of Velma’s mother, Diya Dinkley (Sarayu Blu), who everyone believes simply ran off to parts unknown, everyone except Velma (Mindy Kaling) who believes that she was abducted and will stop at nothing to find the truth, no matter who gets hurt in the process. Her search for her missing mother is greatly hampered by crippling guilt-based hallucinations that bring her to her knees whenever she starts to question the elements involved with her mother’s disappearance.

 

At least her hallucinations were visually interesting if not the plot.

Velma's search for her missing mother runs into a few speed bumps along the way; several local teenage girls are murdered and found with their brains missing and while this mystery does eventually tie in with the disappearance of Velma’s mother it’s not all that compelling and the few suspects the show feeds us are thin at best and lame at worst, and when the final unmasking occurs it’s almost an anti-climax because the writers have failed to make us care about anyone in this town. Could the killer be Shaggy’s guidance counsellor father? Probably not, but the writers will toss in some damning evidence to make us think so and then quickly toss that aside as they move on to the next piece of crude humour or lazy trope to run into the ground. The show even tries to make Fred Jones (Glenn Howerton) a suspect but even the writers of this show weren’t going to go so as far as to make one of the Scooby gang an actual killer.

 

He’s not the killer but the writers do their best to make us wish he was dead.

It should also be noted that this really isn’t a mystery show, despite all the bizarre and quirky things the writers toss into this blender of a show, which was clearly trying to be an animated version of Twin Peaks, but the mystery itself isn’t the real focus of the show, instead, a "love quadrangle" between the founding members of Mystery Incorporated seems to be the central focus. First, we have Norville “Shaggy” Rogers (Sam Richardson) and his unrequited love for Velma, despite the fact that she treats him like a doormat, then we have her mad crush on Fred Jones despite him being an insane man-baby, and finally, she is soon seen lip-locking with Daphne Blake (Constance Wu) to bring up that question of Velma’s sexuality as if that part of her character is now the most important part. Clearly, the writers of this show saw the positive feedback on the HBO MAX series Harley Quinn and thought they’d just copy and paste some of those elements here.

 

Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy this is not.

The character of Velma Dinkley has been queer-coded since pretty much her inception and with her relationship with Hotdog Water in the series Mystery Incorporated, and her out-of-the-closet crush on Coco Diablo in Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo, this was certainly no shocking revelation, and this isn't to say and I love to see her in a relationship with Daphne, just not this Velma as this incarnation is such a narcissistic asshat that she doesn’t deserve to be happily ever after with anyone. As bodies start to pile up and we learn disturbing backstories about all of our main cast the central mystery unfolds at a snail's pace – this should have been a movie as the mystery we are given is unsustainable over ten episodes – and despite every attempt to make this a dark meta take on the Scooby gang it fails on pretty much every level.

 

I'll admit, we do need more shows that have brains in jars.

Stray Observations:

• HBO wanted us to know right off the hop that "This isn’t “Your dad’s Scooby-Doo” by having the first episode opening with two cockroaches humping, clearly, subtly was not on the writers’ menu.
• I did appreciate the turning of “Danger Prone Daphne” on its head by making her embrace the name, with it now symbolizing her love of danger and not her penchant for getting gagged and tied up.
• Daphne’s dad informs her that “Crystals are a hoax, like internships” which is one of the few observational jokes that actually worked in this show, but who wants to bet that HBO has an internship program?
• There’s a throw-away line about Velma having gone through a “Flat Earth Phase” which is a rather bizarre character trait to give to the most logical member of Mystery Incorporated.
• We get the classic chase through multiple doors until Fred screams out “Stop, going through doors like this, it is physically impossible” before realizing they're in some sort of funhouse.  This actually made me chuckle, which goes to prove that an infinite amount monkeys are bound to make one thing work.
• We eventually learn that Daphne’s real parents are criminals who run an underground crystal smuggling ring, that they dress up like Captain Caveman is another case of the writers going “Hey, remember that show?” as if that equals funny.

 

Pop cultural references are the lazy man’s comedy.

The key problem with this show wasn’t the over-the-top shenanigans of Velma, Daphne, Shaggy and Fred, if you watch the series Be Cool, Scooby-Doo you can see how this can be pulled off to great effect, the problem actually stems from the fact that the writers of this show appear to have no love whatsoever for these classic characters, this wasn’t a case of deconstructing tropes, which can be funny if done properly, it was straightforward character assassination done in the most mean-spirited manner possible, and what is fun about that? It’s obvious that the creators of this show were all about creating a show that was all about “subversion” and being all “meta” but while those elements can lead to an interesting series but Velma actually fell victim to the very tropes it was trying to mock. This is not to say every attempt at humour failed but I’d say a good eighty percent of the jokes hit the floor with a resounding thud, and while the racial-blind casting and voice acting was not an issue for me – who could oppose the idea of a Daphne being a hot redheaded Asian American, certainly not me – however, I did take issue with how they were all treated in this brutal incarnation.

 

“Hey guys, let’s make Velma into a narcissistic version of Daria, wouldn’t that be great?”

The big question here is “Who exactly was this show for?” because it’s not for fans of Scooby-Doo, who will hate it for what it did to their favourite characters, nor is it for older audience members who may enjoy a darker take on the genre because the writers actually went out of their way to insult adults who watch cartoons, and the result is a show that now consists mostly of hate-watchers, sadly, that demographic was apparently large enough to greenlight a second season.