This live action made for TV movie is a sequel to Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins (2009). It is excellent when it focuses on the mystery and less so when it focuses on romance.
In this film the gang gets summer jobs caddying at a country club owned by Daphne's uncle. Here they learn about a creepy legend of a lake monster and witch who controls him. When the monster crashes a party, the gang has yet another mystery on their hands.
What works about this movie the best is the typical mystery and spooky elements. The villains here are wonderfully and delightfully spooky. The lake monster has a really creepy design and the cheaper CGI actually works perfectly to give him a more other worldly feel. The scene with the character's backstory is also wonderfully done. The climatic scene of this film is also delightfully creepy. I could easily see this scaring me as a kid and that gives me great respect for this film. The reveal of who the witch is wonderful. It is a fantastic mystery as it takes some figuring to guess but all the clues add up perfectly. This movie also does a great job of capturing the delightfully atmospheric look and feel of Scooby-Doo! Where Are You in live action.
The humor is hit and miss here but I admit that there are a few jokes that made me laugh. Also even though Scooby himself is underused in this film, I did really enjoy some of his cartoony slapstick here.
Unfortunately this film spends too much time on the romance between the characters. Fred and Daphne are dating and he thinks it is serious and she doesn't. Meanwhile Shaggy has a crush on Velma but is afraid to tell her. This leads to some really bland soap opera like shenanigans, we have seen a million times and done much better. The problem is that this takes up too much time away from the mystery and considering how well done the mystery is here, I definitely wish that we could have spent more time there. This film came out the same year the TV show, Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated premiered and frankly that show did this much much better. I will also say that Nick Palatas often tried too hard with his Shaggy voice and this could get a little distracting and annoying. If he toned it down a little, it could have been a much better performance.
All in all this is a very uneven movie and when it works, it works very well and when it doesn't it falls flat.
There were two more live action Scooby-Doo! made for TV movies planned but due to disagreements between Warner Bros. and Cartoon Network, this never happened. The first was already written and had begun the storyboarding process. The other was in the process of being written.
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