The 90s were a good decade for Scooby-Doo as a franchise. After seeing the success brought by rerunning the 70s cartoons, Warner Brothers went ahead and produced four direct-to-VHS films: Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost, Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders, and finally Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase. As the target audiences at the time were reaching their late childhoods to teenage years, these films represented a large tonal shift from almost all the content present in the franchise until this point:

Real, supernatural elements played completely straight and not just for laughs, something only present in the short-lived and not entirely popular 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, which also replaced the entire gang besides Scooby, Shaggy, and Daphne with Scrappy, Vincent Price, and a hispanic kid named "Flim Flam" whose entire character trait was stealing.

These 90s films though, while being spookier in terms of plot and content, also featured a new, much more capable voice cast and a new art style that heavily emphasizes thick, dark shadows and just better animation in general. Seriously, at times these movies can be beautiful to look at, even if they aren't flawless masterpieces in that sense either. Some of the characters look bad in between frames, but the backgrounds are all great looking consistently. Overall, despite an ongoing debate about whether Alien Invaders or Cyber Chase is the worst of the four, all four films are still some of the highest quality Scoob content out there.

But what about Witch's Ghost specifically?

The movie opens up on a museum curator, wandering the darkened halls of the museum after dark as the gang is seen hiding in disguise around the building. These two mummy dudes pop out of a coffin and try to kill the guy with some medieval weaponry, but they're captured after a chase scene set to an admittedly bizarre country remix of the classic theme song. As they corner Shaggy and Scooby, they're knocked over by a mysterious individual and unmasked by the gang as a couple of petty schmucks as per the usual.

The mystery man reveals himself to be a guy named Ben Ravencroft, with a prime Tim Curry voice. He's a horror author, and was at the museum doing research for his books before noticing the whole spooky monster situation. Having heard of the gang and being a fan of their exploits (similarly, Velma is a big fan of his books), he invites them to visit the annual harvest festival in his New England hometown of Oakhaven, which is the principle setting of the movie.

A quaint little town with a very nice autumn vibe, they learn upon arriving that during the construction of the town's new tourist attraction, the "Puritan Village", a small historical recreation of what the town was once like, the grave of the "evil witch" Sarah Ravencroft (Ben's ancestor) was upturned, causing her vengeful spirit to haunt the town. The mayor seems completely pleased by this though, as it's really raking in the tourism bucks that their small town desperately needed. Ben Ravencroft is less pleased, as according to him, his ancestor was wrongfully burned at the stake, being a wiccan natural healer who used herbal medicine to treat the sick of the village, not an evil witch.

Claiming the Witch's Ghost to be nothing more than a myth, Ben recruits the gang to help him solve the mystery. He shows them around his big old house and they explore the town, meeting several of the townsfolk including the pharmacist and the diner owner, and seeing an ad for the "Hex Girls", a local music group who will be performing at the festival. For the most part though, this chunk of the movie just involves the gang going around this place. It's a very nice looking town and quite comfy, even if not much of note happens. Upon visiting the Puritan Village, Shaggy finds this old buckle embedded in the ground, which the mayor points out is probably just some old shoe buckle. Shaggy holds onto it, because it's technically still an artifact.

While out at night, Scooby and Shaggy run into a group of three goth chicks, who scare them away by acting hilariously edgy. These are the Hex Girls, and probably the most interesting part of this movie. Not because their leader (Her name is Thorn, the other two are named Luna and Dusk, though are much less imporant) is hot, mind you, but because out of all of these movies, they're the only characters to genuinely leave a lasting impact on the franchise, appearing either in person or referenced in several movies and cartoons since. They were by far the breakout hit of this film, but before we can learn why, Shaggy and Scooby run into the actual Witch's Ghost, who chases them around and throws fireballs.

They manage to get away, and gang spends some more time looking into the situation and examining the scene, Velma finding traces of pyrotechnics in the area. Ben Ravencroft also reveals that he's searching for Sarah Ravencroft's medical journal in order to clear her name and vindicate her as a victim of the witch trials. The gang adds this to this list of shit they gotta resolve before the end of this movie, and later that night, they stumble into the Hex Girls as they rehearse for the upcoming concert.

This scene right here is why is the Hex Girls became what they did. This one single scene cemented them as series mainstays and probably the most popular Scooby-Doo characters besides the gang in general.

The Hex Girls performing their iconic "theme song" is probably one of the most memorable scenes from these movies, and if you've ever seen this film in particular, chances are pretty good that you remember this particular scene probably more than anything else in the rest of the movie. Plus, this song is just Halloween playlist perfection. Anyway, the gang chats with the Hex Girls afterwards, who explain that they aren't witches, just goth chicks into wiccan stuff and saving the environment. Considering the current state of things, they did a piss-poor job, but I digress. Velma gets sus because their performance uses similar special effects to the Witch's Ghost. The gang splits up, Shaggy and Scooby tailing the Mayor while Fred and Daphne follow the Hex Girls. Velma goes with Ben, acting like a pathetic simp not unlike in Monsters Unleashed.

After participating in a mandatory stealth segment in which the mayor runs errands while they try to tail him, Shaggy and Scooby follow him to an old spooky barn while Fred and Daphne overhear the Hex Girls talking about rituals and once again acting hilariously performative in their goth edginess. I don't know if you are meant to take the Hex Girls seriously, but they act just like edgy young adult girls and they're pretty funny in that regard, which is one of the reasons I've always liked them. They get toned down very heavily in subsequent appearances though in this regard, which is disappointing. Fred and Daphne see Thorn, their leader, doing some shit with herbs in a shed and assume she's evil and practicing witchcraft for... some reason.

Eventually, Shaggy and Scooby lose the mayor and run into the Witch's Ghost, which chases them around until they reunite the with the gang. After regrouping for a bit, Mystery Inc. runs back into the Hex Girls, where they're all attacked by the ghost. The gang manages to get one up on this Banjo-Kazooie reject though, and unmasks her as... the town pharmacist , who turns out to be Thorn's father as well. We did meet him earlier, though we didn't know about their familial connection until now. It's sort of funny seeing the Hex Girls drop the edge when he's around though.

As the gang discovers immediately afterwards, the entire town is in on this ruse, including every townsperson encountered so far and the mayor himself. They came up with this whole plan after legitimately digging up Sarah Ravencroft's grave during the construction of the Puritan Village, though only finding her headstone. They realized they could capitalize on this in order to draw tourism, and each member of the town pitched in somewhat in order to rig the town up with everything required to make this work.

Ben Ravencroft is pissed, because they're basically shitting on his ancestor to make a quick buck, but upon hearing about the grave thing being real, asks if they found the book. The mayor says he didn't, and apologizes for all the trouble.

But wait, this is only like, halfway through the movie. Huh? Yeah, this one gets... interesting for a movie that starts with a standard, if aesthetic, Scooby plot. Originally, the studio wanted the movie to end with this unmasking and reveal, fearing their last foray (Zombie Island) was too scary. The creative team however, pushed for the back half of this movie to remain intact, and eventually won out. It's still nowhere near as scary as Zombie Island, but it's still interesting.

The gang goes back to Ben's manor with the Hex Girls. After some discussion, they match the buckle that Shaggy found way at the start of the movie to a picture of Sarah Ravencroft's journal, and they realize that it must be back at the village where Shaggy found it. They head back and unearth the book, only to to run headfirst into this movie's big twist.

When Ben Ravencroft gets his hands on the book, he reveals the truth behind pretty much every event in the movie beyond the "haunting" manufactured by the town. He paid off the museum guys to pull their ghost scheme specifically to facilitate a meeting with Mystery Inc. in order to bring them back to town and unearth this book for him, seeing as how they're experts at solving mysteries. Why? Because this book isn't actually his ancestor's medical journal.

Sarah Ravencroft was indeed the evil witch she's been represented as, and now he has his hands on her book of dark magic, the book that she was sealed inside hundreds of years ago, hence her empty grave. Summoning dark magic to his control, Ben Ravencroft wreaks havoc on the town, imprisoning the mayor and Thorn's dad before summoning Sarah Ravencroft back into this world. Here we have our real Witch's Ghost, and while she's not necessarily scary, this plot twist was mindblowing as a kid. Tim Curry's performance really peaks here now that he gets to be evil for a while too. While I wouldn't necessarily call this the outright best part of the film, its definitely the thing (besides the Hex Girls) that really defines this movie.

Ben declares his intention to rule the world with Sarah, but she's having none of that. Descendant or not, she doesn't see a particular reason to listen to Ben, and instead wishes to simply kill everyone and raze everything to the ground as revenge for being sealed away. Ben protests, attempting to seal her back in the book, but it doesn't work because he's just too evil to use the spell. She traps him in a little magic zone for his insolence, and proceeds to animate several objects in the surrounding and turn them into monsters, including this turkey guy who very quickly realizes that he should be more afraid of Shaggy and Scooby than vice-versa, for obvious reasons.

After a battle, the gang manages to get the book to Thorn, who manages to seal Sarah away once again, but not before she drags Ben into the book with her. A burning tree branch collapses onto the book afterwards, burning it to ashes and presumably killing them both. With both Witch's Ghosts now defeated, the harvest festival kicks off, and the Hex Girls give a final performance to close out the movie.

This movie isn't perfect by any means, don't get me wrong, but I think the visuals and aesthetic alone catapult it above most of the catalog so far. Between being the debut of the iconic Hex Girls and the fun villain twist with the fakeout first half, I think this movie still has a lot going for it. It's not as good as Zombie Island is, as far as Scooby-Doo films go, but it's a strong entry and much like its predecessor, was probably one of the reasons the franchise is even still going to this day.

I could talk about how this movie isn't all that scary, or about how the initial mystery isn't that strong, , or really any similar complaint, but in the end this movie's positives put it above most of the rest of the franchise in terms of reasons to watch it. You have to remember after all, this is a list of Scooby-Doo films, most of which are complete garbage, so getting to watch something that has legitimate atmosphere and environmental character at times is just very refreshing.

It's not as funny as Monsters Unleashed obviously, but as far as traditional, animated Scooby-Doo goes, this is near the very top. I love hand-drawn, 2D animation, and this movie looks great compared to the others on this list so far. I'd sooner watch this movie five times again than watch Monster of Mexico even once (not to mention the gunshot to the head I'd take before rewatching Daphne & Velma, so take that as you will.

And again, I thought Thorn was hot as a kid. I really don't need to justify giving this a...

9/10

Ranking:
#1 - Scooby Doo and the Witch's Ghost - 9/10
#2 - Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed - 8/10
#3 - Scooby Doo: Abracadabra-Doo - 7.5/10
#4 - Scooby Doo: Stage Fright - 5.5/10
#5 - Scooby-Doo and the Monster of Mexico - 4.5/10
#6 - Scoob! - 4/10
#7 - Scooby Doo and WWE: Curse of the Speed Demon - 3/10
#8 - Daphne & Velma - 1/10

I never wound up seeing this one as a kid despite owning both Zombie Island and Alien Invaders (though I remember virtually nothing about them now). That's honestly a neat fakeout twist that fits Scooby-Doo, good way to mix in a "real" paranormal aspect alongside the traditional approach.

i vividly remember watching this as a kid and the twist being sick as hell