SCOOBY-DOO AND THE CURSE OF THE 13th GHOST (2019)

Studio:      Warner Bros. Animation
Director:    Cecilia Aranovich Hamilton
Writer:      Tim Sheridan
Producer:  Jennifer Coyle, Amy McKenna
Stars:     Frank Welker, Grey Griffin, Matthew Lillard, Kate Micucci, Noshir Dalal, David Herman, Maurice LaMarche, Nolan North

Review Score:

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Summary:

Vincent Van Ghoul summons the Scooby gang back to the Himalayas to capture the final demon that eluded them years ago.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

In a flashback, evil shadow minions stalk Vincent Van Ghoul and his best friend Mortifer after they capture the 13th ghost inside the legendary Chest of Demons. Mortifer distracts the minions so Vincent can escape with the chest. Vincent sees the minions envelop his friend.

Fred Jones, Daphne Blake, Velma Dinkley, Shaggy Rogers, and Scooby-Doo pursue Farmer Morgan through an abandoned mall only to find out from the sheriff that mall owner Mrs. Malveaux was actually behind a haunting staged to devalue local land for the mall’s expansion. Due to the mix-up, the sheriff cautions the gang about the consequences of their amateur investigations while advising them to give up solving mysteries.

Taking the sheriff’s warning seriously, Fred sells the Mystery Machine at a garage sale. A man named Bernie Alan tries to buy a crystal ball when Vincent Van Ghoul suddenly appears inside it. Vincent summons the teens to help capture the 13th demon they didn’t get during their previous collaboration. Since Fred and Velma weren’t originally involved, Daphne briefly recounts her, Shaggy, and Scooby’s adventures with Vincent.

Daphne unveils her mobile command van dubbed ‘The Miss-tery Machine.’ While the gang hits the road, Velma reads from an ancient tome about the 13th ghost, Asmodeus, king of the demons. A ghost car tries running the van off a cliff, but everyone makes it to the Van Ghoul family castle.

After exploring the castle, Scooby and the gang rescue Vincent from imprisonment inside a crypt. Asmodeus suddenly attacks, but no one has the Chest of Demons to capture him. Shaggy reveals that he sent the chest to Vincent’s former address in the Himalayas. Asmodeus vanishes to go after the chest.

Vincent recounts how he and Mortifer originally found the Chest of Demons inside King Solomon’s private vault. Their crowbar inadvertently broke the lock and released the demons, sending the two men on a quest to recapture them. Mortifer died, but the demons were successfully imprisoned inside the chest until Scooby and Shaggy accidentally opened it.

The gang takes Vincent’s jet to the Himalayas where they find the village evacuated due to a demon infestation. The teens spot Bernie Alan from the garage sale, who then runs away.

While Vincent, Daphne, Shaggy, and Scooby head toward the temple, Fred and Velma go to the dead letter office to look for the package Shaggy mailed to Vincent. Fred and Velma learn that the package was there until that morning.

Fred and Velma meet a teenage Flim Flam, who shows them the souvenirs he sells made to look like the Chest of Demons. Fred and Daphne leave Flim Flam’s gift shop only to be hoisted into the air by something unseen in the fog.

The ghost car mysteriously returns to create an avalanche by revving its engine. Daphne, Vincent, Shaggy, and Scooby manage to ride the snow into the temple.

Daphne, Vincent, Shaggy, and Scooby find Asmodeus with the chest. The two sides repeatedly steal the chest back and forth until Scooby and Shaggy end up with it.

Unable to get past the avalanche snow blocking the door, the teens ask Vincent to use a spell. Vincent reveals he has been unable to use magic since Asmodeus appeared. Vincent instead breaks his crystal ball at Asmodeus’ feet, which transports Daphne, Shaggy, and Scooby outside. Through their crystal ball, Vincent tells the teens that he must remain behind to face the demon alone.

Fred and Velma drop from the sky to rejoin the gang. Everyone feels defeated until Fred uses his cheerleader talents to rally their spirits. Fred and Velma return to Flim Flam to gear up with his gizmos while Daphne, Shaggy, and Scooby use Vincent’s plane to parachute back into the temple.

The ghost car comes for Fred, Velma, and Flim Flam as they drive Daphne’s van. After escaping, they reunite with the others inside the temple as Vincent confronts Asmodeus.

Vincent reveals that Asmodeus is actually his ancestor Asemod Van Ghoul, who was a powerful sorcerer until he became corrupt and the powers of good trapped him in the chest. Asmodeus opens the chest. With her skepticism that ghosts aren’t real renewed, Velma points out that demons are unable to open the chest.

Using one of Flim Flam’s gadgets, the gang unmasks Asmodeus to reveal he is actually Mortifer. Mortifer confesses that he faked his death and fooled Vincent because he wanted to steal the chest and sell it for ten million dollars.

Bernie Alan enters to reveal he is actually undercover Interpol agent and amateur figure skater Vance Linklater, who had been tracking Mortifer the entire time. Shaggy realizes he mistakenly sent one of Flim Flam’s souvenir coolers full of spoiled food to Vincent, not the real Chest of Demons.

The ghost car comes to rescue Mortifer. However, the car causes another avalanche that buries Mortifer in snow. Vincent briefly sees the snow morph into an image of his ancestor.

To put Vincent at ease, Velma makes up a story from the ancient tome to say Asemod was actually looking for redemption, not revenge, and thus had been acting as Vincent’s guardian from within the chest. Vance and his men arrest Mortifer.

Velma finds the real Chest of Demons with Shaggy’s luggage. Velma contemplates opening it to prove ghosts aren’t real, but the others convince her not to.

Everyone says goodbye to Flim Flam before leaving in Vincent’s plane. The gang decides to get back into solving mysteries.

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Review:

“The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo” was a preferred Saturday morning selection for me when it debuted in 1985. For one thing, it costarred film legend Vincent Price as mystic adventurer Vincent Van Ghoul. For another, it featured “real” ghosts, not grifters disguised in rubber masks, as Scooby and company traveled the world recapturing 13 baddies inside the fabled Chest of Demons.

It wasn’t all sunshine and Skittles as Scooby-Doo series go. Viewers also had to put up with Scrappy-Doo, dimwit ghost duo Weerd and Bogel, and Flim Flam, the slickster sidekick producers of the period invariably shoved into all of their programs under the mistaken pretense that kids needed a character to relate to.

Quickly turning into a ghost itself, “The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo” became the shortest incarnation of the venerable franchise with just 13 episodes. I grew up as an anal-retentive math nerd back then. I wouldn’t say the lack of closure bugged me as much as “ALF’s” cliffhanger series finale did five years later. But I was fully aware of the fact that the show ended without Scooby’s side squad recovering all 13 demons.

Hanna-Barbera and Warner Bros. Animation remembered too. We all would have gotten along fine had this dangling thread never been tied. Yet it’s a noble nod from producers who said, “how about we do something specifically for our 1980s audience” and finally followed up 34 years later with the animated feature “Scooby-Doo and the Curse of the 13th Ghost.”

Outside of peripheral awareness of pop culture references in “Mystery Incorporated,” and the existence of crossovers with properties like “Supernatural,” I haven’t paid close attention to Scooby-Doo’s universe since childhood. I’m sure there are plenty of adult fans who have, so I’m mentioning this to calibrate my personal starting point going into the movie.

“Scooby-Doo and the Curse of the 13th Ghost” opens on a sequence where Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy, and Scooby chase a man through a mall only to find out he isn’t involved in a fake haunting. (He’s just a farmer afraid of teenagers.) For once in their amateur investigator careers, the meddling kids shockingly finger the wrong suspect.

The script humorously employs a “this is what would happen in such circumstances” reality check for the Scooby gang. The sheriff gives them a legality lecture about being criminally negligent minors, casually points out that leash laws apply to their dog, and threatens everyone with possible prison time if they ever screw up like that again. This sensibility of self-awareness works well to modernize the film’s feel while injecting terrifically tongue-in-cheek jabs. Good thing the guy whose face they tried to pull off decided not to press charges.

Taking the sheriff’s suggestion to heart, the gang hosts a garage sale to get out of the mystery racket by getting rid of their gear. That’s when Vincent Van Ghoul serendipitously appears inside an old crystal ball to tell the teens he needs help trapping the 13th spirit inside the Chest of Demons.

Fred and Velma, who weren’t part of that particular TV series, naturally have no idea who Vincent is or what he is raving about. In fact, they’re surprised Daphne, Shaggy, and Scooby never mentioned Vincent, Flim Flam, or the 13 demons before. I’m surprised too, but it makes for more meta jokes that wink at the viewer while providing a chuckle.

As part of another contemporizing update, Daphne returns to the forefront as team leader while Fred pays for the sins of being a bossy brain for so many years. At a 21st-century time when equality issues are a top social topic, it’s amusing to see Fred demoted to having to haggle with Scoob and Shag over Scooby Snack bribes, unable to operate a stick shift, and otherwise being a doof.

It’s not all comic relief though. Fred gets a semi-inspirational side story about overcoming his aimlessness and feelings of inadequacy to find out how he best fits in to help his friends. For a family friendly film, some pretty progressive themes subtly shine through in commendable fashion.

After encountering a ghost car, rendezvousing with Vincent at the Van Ghoul family castle, and coming face to face with the demon Asmodeus for the first time, Scooby and crew head to the Himalayas to recover the infamous chest before Asmodeus gets to it first. Once in Asia, everyone unexpectedly runs into an oddly familiar face, reunites with Flim Flam, and digs deeper into a mystery involving several secrets from Vincent Van Ghoul’s past.

Thick slices of filler occupy plenty of the movie’s 80-minute pie. Perhaps it’s appropriate since they weren’t around for the first team-up with Vincent, but you could entirely excise Fred and Velma, who are off on their own much of the time, and not have their absence affect the plot. We also don’t need two separate scenes of the other four friends fleeing from an avalanche, yet we have to bear them both anyway. I don’t know how much time they spend traipsing through Van Ghoul’s castle before finally finding Vincent either, but that’s more disposable material whose omission could easily cut down “Scooby-Doo and the Curse of the 13th Ghost” to under an hour.

I hate calling her out, but Kate Micucci does not do it for me as Velma. She’s been performing the character since 2015, so maybe I’m merely not used to hearing her version of the voice. But my mind’s ears of what Velma “should” sound like ring an alarm bell every time she speaks. Micucci might grow on me. In the meantime, I miss Mindy Cohn in the role.

At the other end of the cast list, Maurice LaMarche speeds away as the standout star of the show. LaMarche’s Vincent Price imitation is drop dead astounding in accuracy, inflection, and timbre. Producers should put more projects with Vincent in the pipeline just to take advantage of his talent. My own parody impression has always been based on the ‘Vincent Price’s Egg Magic’ bit from The Simpsons’ Super Bowl episode. (“My grandson Joooo-dee!”) From now on I’ll practice by mimicking LaMarche.

I took a look at some of the negative reactions posted online from disappointed fans of “The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo” series. While I disagree that their criticisms earn the movie a thumbs down, they’re not wrong. “Scooby-Doo and the Curse of the 13th Ghost” doesn’t truly provide the resolution it promises, for reasons that appear related to returning the franchise to its non-supernatural roots. The final revelation feels a bit like a bait and switch, though it’s not enough of a “drink your Ovaltine” letdown to outweigh everything else worth enjoying.

Partnered with several interesting Easter eggs, the nostalgia factor adds a certain amount of fun for “old school” fans like myself, including a chef’s kiss cheap dig at Scrappy. Outside of that though, “The Curse of the 13th Ghost” is an admittedly average Scooby-Doo adventure. Vincent’s plentiful puns inspire smiles. Lamer gags hobble horribly. All in all, the movie mostly lines up with what I’d expect from a DTV Scooby flick. It’s not the epic conclusion we expected, arguably deserved, for “The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo” saga. But it’s a fine enough follow-up for a quick hit of cartoon charm.

Review Score: 65

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