By Claire Rhode
Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo! (2022) is a love letter to the franchise, but Warner Bros isn't Shakespeare. The premise of the film is that every case from the original series had one mastermind behind the costume villains -- Coco Diablo. Coco is suave, knows her way around a wardrobe, and has a cat for a personal assistant (an opportunity, as always, for Scooby Doo to hate cats. Rude boy). However, when Mystery Inc. tracks down Coco, they create a whole new problem: without good costumed creeps, there are no new monsters to chase. At least, there are no new monsters until the gang's ancient doppelgangers show up to wreck havoc on Halloween, which means that the gang has to team up with an unexpected ally.
Not the sort of doppelganger you want to run into in a dark alley
This movie isn't deep, but it is a fun romp that managed to give each member of the gang their own subplot, which is rare in a Scooby-Doo movie. Velma's reveal is well-known -- if you saw the clips of her swooning over Coco Diablo, you're not alone. And, honestly, I respect Velma's taste. Daphne is questioning her place in the gang. Fred doesn't know how to live in a world without weirdos dressing up in costumes trying to commit land related crimes. And Shaggy and Scooby? Well, theirs is food focused, of course.
Some pros include:
- Fun music! Wouldn't be a Scooby-Doo chase scene without it.
- A morally grey character. Weird, but Scooby-Doo rarely goes there.
- Refined versions of the characters we started to see in the earlier Mystery Incorporated series. Each member of the gang gets a bit more personality than we saw in the original series, but they are definitely reliant on fans already recognizing aspects of the characters from Mystery Incorporated specifically - so they've brought in Fred's himbo energy (but toned him down a bit so he isn't too stupid to live), given Daphne agency, explored Velma's sexuality without having to include a character named Hot Dog Water, and actually differentiated a bit between Shaggy and Scooby's personalities.
Hot Dog Water, for the uninitiated
- Pulls off a twist ending. You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to solve a Doo mystery, but I do like when they at least try to throw you for a loop.
Some cons:
- Scooby-Doo supports the prison-industrial complex.
- The animation, a return to an almost traditional 2D style, occasionally veers into uncanny valley, especially with some facial expressions.
- Mostly I liked it, but there is a little part of my heart that gets grumpy when they retcon or change things about earlier series.
- The shushing librarian stereotype. We've moved past it. Our librarian training is firmly anti-shushing. That said, I do love that a scene happened in a library!
I consider myself a Scooby-Doo aficionado. I've been watching since I was a kid. I've seen the rough ones. I've sat through Scrappy-Doo episodes on purpose. Trick or Treat won't be going down on my list of favorites, but I've seen it twice now and I can imagine rewatching again next Halloween season. It's delightful, lighthearted, and includes a lot of Easter eggs and small callbacks for fans of the franchise. Overall, I give Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo! four out of five stars.
Claire Rhode, a former children's bookseller, is now studying to be a youth librarian.
