Spooky Movie Month Day # 18 – Trick or Treat Scooby Doo & ScoobyNatural Double Feature

October 18th

After finally finishing The Haunting that afternoon, we decided to find a film that was still in our theme, but fun and low on the tension scale. Enter Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo! 

One of the newest installments of Scooby stories, Trick or Treat Scooby Doo was released just last year in 2022. Directed by Audie Harrison and written by he, Laura Palak and Daniel McClellan, this new story finds the gang successful in catching the ultimate nemesis, Coco Diablo. A year after she was sent to prison, the gang is seen bored to death with no work because without Coco, all the villains are gone! Soon after Fred makes a desperate wish for more action and adventure, and strange occurrences bring them back in action – on Halloween night.

Overall, I was somewhat disappointed and had three major issues. 

Velma’s love interest. My hot take: The “crush” was unrealistic and weird and Velma’s overall level of integrity took a hit by going there. I’m thrilled we live in times where it’s not the end of the world to finally admit Velma isn’t straight. I mean… everyone knew that already, right? It’s just… I don’t think she’s stupid enough to fall for a narcissistic supervillain. Coco is a jerk. She’s snotty and rude and thinks she’s better than everyone else. Even the way she complimented Velma was backhanded and super gross and to see Velma swooning over her just felt wrong. Like we’re watching the beginning of what will be come an emotionally abusive relationship. I’m thankful Velma is finally “out” after 53 years, buy I am disappointed her first moment being open is mooning over an egotistic manipulator who profits off of others’ misfortunes.

My other issue was Fred’s obsessive need to have more adventure and bring new life to the business and how it ruined everyone’s Halloween. I felt bad for the the gang, especially Shag and Scoob. The entire time, Fred’s “feeling down” hijacked the day for everyone else as he came up with plans to try and salvage the business, everyone else just got stuck following him out of guilt. The whole thing just made me angry for them as Fred’s fixation with “the old days” ultimately hurt the team and it was never actually addressed as a problem, nor did he apologize for ruining his friend’s holidays with his personal crisis.

Last, I didn’t care for the way they made fun of Goth culture. At first I thought it was funny and clever but then realized, no – they’re actually just making fun of people. The song “Change” by Joseph Holiday & Sack Kibbe was pretty good, though! 

But enough about my thoughts, we’re here to find out what the kids thought! 

When Velma’s crush was revealed, Dragon gasped and said “she’s never liked girls before! I guess she likes everyone, since she had a crush on that museum guy in the other movie”. Then they shrugged and went back to enjoying the story, not giving it another thought. Lion’s response was yelling at the screen, “Coco is a horrible person what is wrong with you!” 

As the plot continues, we discover Coco is a multilayered character and isn’t “all bad”. She’s more like… bad in a Catwoman sort of way and becomes almost endearing by the time it’s over, which I’m not super fond of because in the land of Scooby, bad guys are bad guys. Zero ambiguity. But, whatever. Times are changing and so is our perspective of what a true “villain” is. I see this reflected in the story and while I may not love it, I do love how we’re opening ourselves up to understand that these issues really cannot be binary.

They did like how when Velma was “crushing”, her face turned into a Charlie Brown awkward face just like he does when he has to talk to “the little red haired girl”. They also loved how the movie brought back most of the awesome villains from the past and even gave the gang a chance to wear their costumes!

After, I asked the kids how the movie made them feel. They said it was “SO fun” and “totally hilarious” and “really cool”. This is clearly a Scooby for their generation, not mine. They were laughing and having a blast the entire time and ultimately, LOVED it. Four thumbs up! 

We’d actually gotten an early start that night and after this was over, we had time for a little more. I thought it was the perfect time to show them the Supernatural episode where they get sucked into Scooby Doo. 

I looked and looked and could not find an official image to represent this episode, so please enjoy this incredible artwork by Roberto Saavedra!

ScoobyNatural originally aired on March 29, 2018 during season 13. Sam, Dean and eventually Castiel are sucked into a television and transported directly into a famous episode of Scooby Doo. Written by Eric Kripke, James Krieg and Jeremy Adams, this episode had ALL the Scooby voices we know and love alongside our favorite monster hunters. It’s truly epic for those who love both fandoms. It’s also totally okay for kids with minimal (cartoon) blood and only 1-2 inappropriate/sexual remarks from Dean, both of which went over my kids’ heads entirely. However – my 12 year old was kind enough to point out that this episode was the first time he ever heard curse words in Scooby Doo. So, there’s that.

While I don’t think either of them are actually ready for Supernatural, this episode is great as a stand-alone and can be a great addition to a Halloween lineup for kids probably 10+. All you need to know about the show is Sam, Dean and Castiel area monster hunters. Sam and Dean are brothers and Castiel is an angel. That’s enough to catch up a fresh audience. 

This being one of my favorite shows of all time and to this day, the only show I made time for and never, ever missed when it was on TV until my son was born – it was SO fun to share this with them and they both loved it. 

Dragon’s take; he said “I loved it so much”. Their favorite part was watching Dean get excited about how his mouth got big when he made a sandwich with Shaggy and Scooby.

Lion said it was so much fun and cannot wait to be able to watch the show for real. They thought it was super funny how the gang all had a massive crisis when they realized the monsters were real and started freaking out screaming for the guns and knives and Daphne’s line “Kill it with fire!!”

They did think it was kind of the boys to make them think they were right all along and that monsters weren’t real, but also lying is bad and maybe there was a better way to handle that.

Overall, four emphatic thumbs up!! *Sniff* I’m so proud… 

Tomorrow we go back to the silver screen and dive into one of the greats! 

Stay tuned to see where our voyage on the Mothership takes us next!