Saturday Morning Massacre

As a horror film Saturday Morning Mystery is nothing special. It's not particularly scary or innovative in the 'who, what and how'. The bit that IS innovative is the use of an ersatz version of the gang from Scooby Doo... and that is the film's only real talking point. It lives or dies by how well that is pulled off. Sadly it's a mixed bag of nuts. The first half is great, I enjoyed seeing the real-life version of the characters I watched as a kid... worrying over having no real source of income, having to deal with the police, uncovering criminals whose motives are a bit nastier than 'old man Geezer trying to keep kids away from his gold'. They run into a few quirky characters (what's up with the couple in the diner?) and a haunted house with a bad history. So yeah, the setup is fun. Naturally, I favored the 'Velma' character Nancy. She's brave, perky and smart just like she oughtta be.

To my mind the movie took a turn for the worse when the obligatory 'Shaggy'-induced drug sequence goes down. It took me a moment to realize what was going on and somehow it just didn't sit well. It felt forced... or something. After that, and the equally obligatory 'Fred' and 'Daphne' sex scene it felt like the writers had shot their wad.

The trick of the movie is that it tries to go where Scooby Doo never went... where, as a kid, I always wanted it to go, by giving the kids some REAL monsters to uncover. Unfortunately this is where it pretty much completely drops the Scooby Doo setup and goes straight into 'coeds meet rabid hillbilly' territory. There are no surprises or interesting moments from this point on that haven't been seen in dozens of other fright flicks. I have a larger issue with horror films in general that throw up their hands when it's time to get scary and resort to just chopping up the cast rather than coming up with more creative ways to say 'BOO!'. Death and dismemberment are nasty but a lot can be said for more subtle character-based scares as well. The monsters in Saturday Morning Mystery just are not worthy of their adversaries. For one thing they bear no resemblance to the ersatz spooks the cartoon gang had to thwart... which is fine, but they're not a particularly interesting pack of ghouls in any other way either. They're just there to sneak around in the background and then leap out and kill. Not surprisingly the kids on their own are much more fun to watch.

There is a confused attempt to do the signature 'hallway chase scene' that was often in the old cartoons... but if it was meant to be funny it wasn't.

Really, if it weren't for the first 45 minutes or so of this movie it wouldn't even be worth a discussion because it would be just another slasher flick.

Firstly I'd like to say that I really hate it when the posters and covevart to a film is misleading it in some cases features characters that aren't fen in the film ........like the chainsaw!?? Supposedly this is a comedy horror? But I can't remember anything remotely funny. Shame as the idea of a gory parody of Scooby Doo is a good one but was totally wasted on this very lazy script.

The acting isn't too bad but it just plods along at snail pace with usual cliches and the fun only really starts in the last 25mins, from then it's ok. Some ok gore and hint of tension. Ultimately it's a huge wasted opportunity due to the poor writing. Only watch if not much else on.

The single greatest missed opportunity in the history of man. What should have been a groovy five star romp, turned out to be nothing more than a half-baked wannabe Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Saturday Morning Mystery is brainless, practically bloodless, and without a sense of humor...or horror for that matter. The film, if you can even call it that, is sure to disappoint every fan of every genre as it brings literally nothing to the table. Turning Scooby Doo into a horror film is the single most brilliant idea I never had. This is why I am so angry at the filmmakers responsible for this blunder, because it deserved better. I could have wiped my butt with film stock and produced a better final product than this trash.

It's obvious what they were going for. A rated R, edgy horror Scooby Doo.

They basically just take everything (minus the dog) and ramp it up to 11 and that should be a blast and to be fair there are times where it is. The cheesey montages, the team coming together, the over the top cliches and some of the horror isn't even half bad.

But it's slow. It plods along, makes it painfully clear it's on a low budget and while the acting isn't bad, why'd they do that to Fred? Honestly it just isn't exciting. A great idea and one I hope gets another try in the future. This just didn't stick the landing.

Other reviewers claimed that a missed opportunity to create a real life Scooby-Doo movie was missed. No it was not. There were already two made and that is more then enough. One reviewers contends it is not a copy of Scooby-Doo, Yes it is. For all intents and purposes, it is. The ONLY reason I would suspect The Evil Dead is mentioned is due to the amount of blood? Of course the blurb on the cover is a no name site and unknown person so why believe what is claimed? One could make a much better comparison. Yeah, they have a dog, so what?

The objective breakdown:

Cinematography: Less then average. Much of the film is shot in darkness. Camera seemed to have a great deal of difficulty in focusing. You will see many a shot not in focus. Shots are not properly framed. This occurs so frequently it is disturbing.

Sound: Average. Sound is clear and no difficulty discerning dialogue.

Music: Background music does not seem to fit the movie and is repetitious, loud and ingratiating after viewing for a period of time

Acting: Some are average. The actor playing the "Shaggy" character is horrid. The cop is not much better. It is amazing how much work some of these actors have in low, low budget er... movies, should I call them that?

Script: Predictable. This is suppose to be a parody. It is extremely obvious that the two writers attempted quite a bit of humor in the dialogue. The problem is, none of it is funny at all. The inability to write humor and the actors inability to deliver the lines properly is as painful as performing botched eye surgery upon one's self with a spatula. It fail completely what it sets out to do.

If one has absolutely nothing else to watch I guess one could watch this. There are SO many bad movies made it is like being hit by a tsunami. Regurgitation of the same film over and over makes me want to regurgitate.