REVIEW: Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island
So this time around I decided to go back to a movie that I remember watching a long time ago when I was a kid. That movie is Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island and it was one of the best horror cartoons that I had seen. I don’t know if this is the first direct-to-DVD movie they made for Scooby-Doo but if it was, it’s probably one of the darkest, funniest old school cartoon horror movies out there. The movie is, basically, about the gang splitting up and then reunited to go ghost hunting for real. They come across a haunted mansion in a Louisiana bayou; little do they know, the mansion is really haunted by ghosts and zombies. It’s a fantastic plot for a cartoon. There are two things that I really enjoyed about this movie and its something that I will always remember about this movie.
The animation in this film is very crisp and since it was released in 1998, it was all hand drawn. The background portraits of Louisiana as well as the mansion felt so real and the artwork was so detailed I felt like I was actually there. That was one thing that I always tried to mock on paper… I wanted to draw like the artists that made the movie because it was so real looking. The setting of the bayou was so beautifully drawn and very picturesque. It looked nice and comfy during the day, but when night rolled around the trees was dark and hanging, the moon was huge, yellow and filled with potholes and the swamp was so foggy and atmospheric. This was a strongpoint of the movie and really set up the tone of it.
Something that I really enjoyed was the storyline. Your typical mystery is about a guy in a mask, and throughout the beginning of the movie that’s what it is so when they arrive on the island… and the zombies begin to attack, you’ll think it’s all a trick and you begin to be skeptic. BUT NO!! It’s all real! Then, even closer to the end, you are smacked upside the head with two whammy’s. The people you think are good are bad, the zombies turn out to be good guys and one of the nicest characters in the whole movie is a double agent… this movie kicks your balls and spits on your face!
Now lets get down to the zombies; what do all zombie have in common… or should I say, what don’t they have in common? In all the Romero movies and in all the zombie flicks, every zombie is diverse in some way and this is especially seen in Dawn of the Dead and in Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island all the zombies range from Civil War vets, to pirates, to tourists, to mobsters to kids! They are all different and that’s what I like to see. The zombies are wonderfully drawn and they walk and moan like real zombies. They don’t bite; they don’t jump or run… these are like old school zombies.
Overall, this was a great movie. It had some dark humor but it also retained that cartoon style of comedy that I loved so much about the Scooby-Doo cartoons. It had a great cast of voices and the animation was very rich. It wasn’t that scary, but for kids it can get a little creepy and the movie had a great storyline to it. It made you feel for the characters and it made you empathize with them too! I think this is one of the best zombie cartoons out there and probably the best Scooby-Doo cartoon movie there is.
Available at Amazon.
