Scooby-Doo! Music of the Vampire

The whole concept of going to a Vampire Festival to get a break form monsters only to find monsters is classic Scooby Doo thinking.

Need a vacation from all the scary monster stuff? Then go to a monster festival, makes total sense...and fits brilliantly into the philosophy of the Scooby gang....sometimes you wonder if they don't do things like this just to torture Shaggy and Scooby.

It fits extremely well into the Scooby world, even down to the humor involved.

And the parody of the vampire story fad, is, of course, the only reason this installment was made. It brings the movies back to the Rice/King parodies in Zombie Island and Witch's Ghost...

...and the twist is fun...unfortunately that's where it dies and continues just long enough to turn what was potential into yet another lackluster conclusion.

It came VERY close to being one of the most solid Scooby Doo movies in the catalogue though. Certainly worth a purchase.

In my honest opinion, then the 2012 "Scooby-Doo! Music of the Vampire" animated movie wasn't the brightest of moments in the Scooby-Doo franchise. Why is that? Well, personally I didn't care much for the musical element that was introduced here. It was just forced and didn't really have a natural place in the cartoon that various characters would spontaneously break out into song in often odd moments.

Without going too deep into the storyline, I will just briefly summarize it here. Scooby-Doo and the gang go to Little Bat village for a vacation after their last solved mystery, as Velma wants to visit the local Vampire Festival. Meeting up with Vincent Van Helsing, what was supposed to be a quiet vacation turns into another mystery as it turns out that some vampire imitators summon forth an ancient vampire by the name of Valdronya.

It should be said that the storyline was good, and the storyline itself was actually quite up to level with other animated Scooby-Doo movies. But it was just a shame that it was cut short by the musical elements.

The animation and drawing style in the cartoon was good, and it had that unique Scooby-Doo feeling that we all love. And being an animated movie, then the voice acting is alpha and omega, and I will say that the talents they had on for the voice acting was good, and they were doing great jobs with their respective characters. It is always a treat to have Matthew Lillard voicing Shaggy and Frank Welker voicing Scooby-Doo.

"Scooby-Doo! Music of the Vampire" certainly does have a place in the Scooby-Doo franchise, but it just wasn't one of the stronger pillars in the franchise.

Nice blend of classic Scooby style with a bit of a different spin on the usual comedy for the series. Great animation as with most of the movies, the monsters are pretty cool, and who knew the gang could do a musical? Well worth putting on the top shelf of Scooby movies.

Scooby-Doo! Music of the Vampire (2011)

*** (out of 4)

Feature cartoon has Scooby and the gang solving a mystery and then heading down South to enjoy a vacation. They end up in Louisiana where there's a Vampire Fest being put on and sure enough they soon find themselves in another mystery. This time a vampire wants to make Daphne his new bride. SCOOBY-DOO! MUSIC OF THE VAMPIRE is actually a fairly entertaining film that manages to have a few good laughs, a couple nice throwbacks to the old TV show and of course there's even a little bit of TWILIGHT spoof thrown in. As you'd expect, the animation is really top-notch and we're given some wonderful visuals to look at. This is especially true with the darkness of the swamp, which simply looks wonderful as do the scenes inside the vampire museum. Another major plus is that the monsters themselves are all pretty good. I thought the vampires looked quite effective and especially the main leader who often finds himself flying through the swamps throwing fire balls. I'm sure these vampires will scare some really young kids as they're quite creepy. The vocal performances are also quite good with all of the main cast members doing a fine job and especially Matthew Lillard who has really perfected his Shaggy work. The film even turns into a musical as there are a couple songs played throughout and they're actually not too bad. They're certainly put to better use than some of those songs that were added to episodes in the second season of the original series. Fans of Scooby should certainly find enough here to keep them entertained and at just 75-minutes the film never overstays its welcome.

I have somehing with the song "Done with monsters" which has been sung by the gang while they were going to the vacation, I mean, I can't get it out of my mind anymore. That song is the thing that should NOT be. Honestly, the movie wasn't that bad, but this song was.