This post was last modified: Oct 28, 2021 at 1:17 AM by Fun With Despair.

Scooby-Doo and the Goblin King is what I imagine you would get if you held a schizophrenic at gunpoint and forced them to watch halloween specials for ten years of their life on repeat, then sat them down at a computer and told them to write a movie. This is such a bizarre film that frankly I wouldn't even believe it was a Scooby-Doo movie if you described it to me while leaving out the names of the main characters.

This movie is... certainly a halloween movie, that's for sure. It's also something out of the depths of the darkest psych wards one can imagine. The movie is basically just nonstop madness, and not in the fun way like Where's My Mummy?. It's extremely trite, bizarre, and it's got far too many musical numbers for my liking. It's one of the "monsters are real" movies, but in a very odd way. Monsters, magic, and the like are all real, but they're not played for scares or anything, but instead this movie goes for some sort of whimsical fairytale feel, which definitely does not fit the cast and characters.

And no, this isn't a case of "good movie but bad scooby doo movie", this one is pretty boring and obnoxious on top of being bat fuck insane. I genuinely mean what I say too, you aren't going to expect a single fraction of what I am about to say about this movie. I am 100% not lying though, trust me this is genuinely what this movie is.

The movie begins with most of the gang on a horror-themed rollercoaster at the Coolsville carnival. It's halloween, which Shaggy and Scooby surprisingly like because it's the one time where every monster is guaranteed to be fake, which I guess makes sense. They wander around the carnival doing carnival things for a bit, until they run into the carnival's magician, "The Amazing Krudsky", who is voiced by Wayne Knight, practically carrying this movie. He acts like a bit of the dick to the group and storms off, which prompts Shaggy and Scooby to attempt to ruin his life by crashing his magic show and exposing all of his tricks.

As a result, the gang gets kicked out of the carnival and... can we just talk about Shaggy's VA for a second? This is one of the last performances of Shaggy's original VA, and compared to even Where's My Mummy? he sounds fucking ancient. Every time he talks, every time he laughs, he sounds like he's dying of throat cancer. I know Return to Zombie Island was bad, but I'm really missing Lillard right now in general.

Scooby and Shaggy decide to go trick or treating, and eventually come across a weird spooky old house. They enter, and it turns out to be a magic shop run by this weird... elf guy. He dances around and talks about how magic is real in an annoying musical number, and meanwhile the Amazing Krudsky is hanging around in his tent butthurt about how he can't use real magic, when... a fairy shows up in his tent and knocks a book off of his shelf that displays the scepter of the Goblin King. He realizes that with the power of the scepter he can be a godlike being and decides to pursue it. He captures the fairy and drains her of her magic powers, which gives HIM real magic powers.

I'd comment on how weird this is for this franchise, but we aren't even close to as far as this goes.

The weird magic shop dude tells Shaggy and Scooby that the Krudsky guy is doing what he's doing, and tells the duo that they have to go to the Spirit World to get the Goblin King's staff first. He's also a rabbit, by the way. It's part of a magic spell don't ask. He gives Shaggy and Scooby a magic disguise ability and they get sent on a spooky grim reaper train to the Spirit World.

Meanwhile, the rest of the gang spies on Krudsky and watches him bargain with the Goblin King through his magic mirror, offering the fairy as trade for his staff. The gang vow to stop him, but in the Spirit World, Shaggy and Scooby are dealing with some shenanigans. They run into a buff werewolf who invites them into a club, and after another annoying musical number, they're ambushed by a couple of goblins who act as recurring antagonists for the rest of the movie. Kind of like Scratch and Grounder from The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog.

They're saved by a talking pumpkin voiced by Jay Leno. Seriously just... don't ask.

The group leaves but they're attacked by the Headless Horseman, who attacks them seeking the pumpkin as his head. They run into three witches who are like the Hex Girls except two of them are ugly as fuck, and are gifted a magic broom that can take them to the Goblin King's castle. They're attacked by the two goblins from earlier though and land in a fairy village, where three faries help them out to the Goblin King's castle. They dress up in drag to get into the king's halloween party, but their disguises wear off as they grab his staff and they're captured and sent to the dungeon.

Meanwhile Mystery Inc. tries to trap Krudsky during his deal with the Goblin King, but they trap the Goblin King instead and Krudsky gets the staff. He turns into a goblin man and begins casting spells that turn people into monsters, but after they all get out of the dungeon, Jay Leno Pumpkin sacrifices himself to get the staff back and Scooby undoes the magic before giving the staff back to the Goblin King. He reveals that the fairy Krudsky had captured was his daughter and in general he seems to be a nice enough guy. He says that Shaggy and Scooby have proven themselves, but that he will have to erase the gang's memory outside of the duo.

He does so, and the magic shop weird rabbit dude brings the Jay Leno Pumpkin back to life before departing until next Halloween. That, my friends, is Scooby Doo and the Goblin King. What did any of this movie have to do with Scooby Doo? Beats me. I think if I had to guess it's probably just a recycled script for an unrelated Halloween film that they crammed the gang into for brand recognition or to hit their yearly quota. This one is... pretty damn bad though, even if it does fit the season. It's just so inherently confusing on a general level.

Not only is there no mystery at all, a hallmark of bad Scoob, but the entire movie is just Shaggy and Scooby wandering the Halloween dimension. Fairies? Magic? Goblin Kings? You'd think all these things would give me lots to talk about but no element of this movie at all really gets proper elaboration, it's all just slapped together with no regard for coherency or quality. I wouldn't say I hate this one as outwardly as our 1/10s so far though, it's mostly just stupid, insane, and somehow boring on top of all of that.

It's a mediocre Halloween cable TV special with Scooby's name attached, and that's all it is. If that's what you want for some reason, you can go ahead and try to watch this, but I'd recommend against it still. The script, characters, and premise are all bad, but not offensively so. This just reminds me of one of those weird early Scoob movies like Reluctant Werewolf, where they're just odd standalone supernatural adventures that don't make any sense. It's too weird and pathetic to truly hate it.

Either way, with most of the movie being a snorefest, this can join Curse of the Speed Demon at a...

3/10

Ranking:
#1 - Scooby Doo on Zombie Island - 10/10
#2 - Scooby Doo and the Witch's Ghost - 9/10
#3 - Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed - 8/10
#4 - Scooby Doo: Abracadabra-Doo - 7.5/10
#5 - Scooby Doo: Where's My Mummy? - 6/10
#6 - Scooby Doo: Stage Fright - 5.5/10
#7 - Scooby Doo: Shaggy's Showdown - 5/10
#8 - Scooby-Doo and the Monster of Mexico - 4.5/10
#9 - Scoob! - 4/10
#10 - Scooby Doo and WWE: Curse of the Speed Demon - 3/10
#11 - Scooby Doo and the Goblin King - 3/10
#12 - Scooby Doo: The Mystery Begins - 2/10
#13 - Scooby Doo: Return to Zombie Island - 1/10
#14 - Daphne & Velma - 1/10

NOTHING ABOUT THIS IS EVEN REMOTELY THE APPEAL OF SCOOBY DOO

i have to assume your theory is right, this is definitely a different special pitch that they retuned into a scooby flick. what the hell. and like you said it doesn't seem to even bother being a GOOD special pitch that had to be branded as something to get made.