Scooby-Doo! Music of the Vampire (2012)

 

A fun, if flawed direct to video Scooby-Doo! movie.

The Mystery Inc. Gang is heading on a vacation, but Velma will not tell Scooby and Shaggy where. Shaggy says anywhere is fine as long as there aren't any monsters. This turns out to not be fully true, as they are going to a vampire festival called, Vampire Palooza. There they see a group of vampire actors performing. Daphne soon has a crush on one of the actors, Braham (a nod to Braham Stoker who wrote the Dracula novel). However when it seems that a real vampire visits the show. It looks like the gang has another mystery on their hands. The stakes for this one though may be higher as the vampire soon kidnaps Daphne. 

There is a lot to love about this movie for Scooby fans. The characters here are all at their most likable and the humor is quite good. While not the funniest film in the franchise, there are quite a few really good laughs in here. The mystery element is excellent and while it is not too hard to solve it is still a lot of fun to try and solve it yourself. The design of the vampire is excellent. It is one of the creepier monster designs and this adds to the creepy atmosphere of the film. Yet it is not too creepy as to take away from lighthearted fun that we except from Scooby-Doo! The vampire festival and the swamp are perfectly creepy and atmospheric Scooby locations. They really pull you further into the film and make this movie stand out as something unique. This movie may be creepier than the average Scooby mystery but this is done very well and really enhances the film. The animation is quite excellent as well. 

This movie has a gimmick to differentiate it from the other Scooby films. That gimmick is that this film is a musical. Unfortunately this is the movie's weak point. None of the songs are all that good and most of them are completely forgettable. They are also not that well incorporated into the story and can at times feel like they come out of no where. This can get distracting. Songs in a musical should enhance the story. Unfortunately that is not the case here where if the songs were left out the story would remain unaffected. 

All in all a really fun Scooby movie, but I still wish they would have dropped the musical element.