As the title suggests, LEGO Scooby-Doo!: Haunted Hollywood is the first Scooby-Doo movie made in the LEGO style.
After Scooby (Frank Welker) and Shaggy (Matthew Lillard) win a burger-eating contest, the gang are invited on a tour of Hollywood’s Brickton Studios, famous for producing classic monster movies. But when they get there, they discover the owner, Chet Brickton (James Arnold Taylor), is being forced to sell the studio because his latest features are being sabotaged by ghostly monsters. Can Scooby, Shaggy, Velma (Kate Micucci), Daphne (Grey Griffin) and Fred (Welker) solve the mystery before Brickton Studios is forced to close its doors forever?
It would be easy to dismiss this direct-to-DVD movie as just another generically bland kids movie that its target audience would find mildly diverting, but adults would find it a chore to sit through its 75 minutes running time. Fortunately LEGO Scooby-Doo!: Haunted Hollywood is actually a lot of fun as it’s clear the director Rick Morales and writer James Krieg are both fans of Scooby-Doo and classic horror movies, particularly Universal’s. The ghost that is haunting Brickton Studios is that of horror icon Boris Carnac, the Man of 999 Faces, who appeared in such fare as The Nephew of the Headless Horseman’s Curse, and is no doubt an affectionate dig at Universal’s Son of Frankenstein and Daughter of Dracula. And there’s no points for guessing who Boris Carnac is an amalgamation of. There’s also references to past Scooby-Doo series with Daphne stating that she was Miss Crystal Cove for five years running. Scooby-Doo fans will immediately get the reference to Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated. The ghosts haunting the studio are also from Scooby lore, but fortunately Scrappy-Doo seems to have been expunged from Doo history.
There’s plenty of gags too. Shaggy is asked to be the replacement for the lead on a rom-com but it goes against his counter-culture principles, and when Velma unmasks the villain she accidentally takes off their entire head. Being a Scooby-Doo movie, it follows the traditional Scooby-Doo template in that the villain and their motivations are easy to spot, but the film reference nods to adult viewers with the excellent voice work of Frank Welker and Matthew Lillard keep this production bright, breezy and fun.
This reviewer’s youngest is mad on LEGO and Scooby-Doo, so it was a winning combination for him. He’d give it 100 out of 10. A tad over generous perhaps.
LEGO SCOOBY-DOO!: HAUNTED HOLLYWOOD / CERT: U / DIRECTOR: RICK MORALES / SCREENPLAY: JAMES KRIEG / STARRING: FRANK WELKER, MATTHEW LILLARD, GREY DELISLE, KATE MICUCCI, DEE BRADLEY BAKER / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
