Western Animation / Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island

This time, the monsters are real...

"All the trees begin to moan
And the monsters grunt and groan
Rotting faces full of slime
Don't you know it's terror time?
And it's terror time again
They've got you running through the night
Yes, it's terror time again
Oh, you just might die of fright!
It's a terrifying time!"

— "It's Terror Time Again" by Skycycle

In 1997, the Scooby-Doo franchise seemed to have run its course. It was six years since A Pup Named Scooby-Doo was cancelled, the only sign of life in the franchise being a made-for-TV-movie in 1994 called Scooby-Doo in Arabian Nights in which Scooby barely appeared, and the ever-present reruns of previous series. Then, trailers on VHS tapes of several Warner Bros. family films began to circulate. It had sleek animation, dark colors, and featured a seemingly dark and potentially scary movie, and it featured Scooby-Doo and Shaggy running for their lives.

With a journey into relatively mature writing by Glenn Leopold, Zombie Island marked a high point in the Scooby-Doo franchise and a venture in the opposite direction most Scooby-Doo movies took. Directed by Jim Stenstrum and released on September 22, 1998, the film is animated with a more dark and realistic feel to it, and featured a somewhat cynical/mature look at what happened to Mystery Inc. after their adventures were done, which would be touched on again in The Movie, but with less success. Characters were more fleshed out and three-dimensional, especially the newly-empowered Daphne. The pop songs of past cartoons gave way to Alternative and Metal music. The story appealed to older viewers with death as part of the backstory, and the end result for the gang if they didn't win.^note  Although the back cover mentioned that they do make it out alive. And there was no contrived story with a guy in a mask, there were real zombies.

The film's success led to the creation of three more direct-to-video movies covering mysteries Scooby and the gang would solve as adults, starting with Scooby-Doo! and the Witch's Ghost. The success of those caused a wholesale revival of the franchise, culminating in a live-action film and the first new TV series in over a decade, What's New, Scooby-Doo?. The Direct-to-Video movies would also continue, even if the animation quality was not often up to the high standards set by Zombie Island.

Production started at Hanna-Barbera, but it was completed by its then-new parent company Warner Bros. Animation after the buyout. WB has produced all subsequent Scooby-Doo films.

The movie starts with Fred inviting Daphne, Scooby, Shaggy, and Velma to a long-awaited Mystery Inc. reunion, held in honor of Daphne’s birthday. The five of them travel to New Orleans in order to find real monsters to discuss on Daphne's talk show. After effortlessly exposing several creature impostors, the gang accepts an offer to visit Moonscar Island. The island is home to a French chili pepper plantation owner named Simone Lenoir, and has become the site of several disappearances over the years. While there, our heroes grapple with zombies and voodoo, death becomes a real threat, and the adventure grows legitimately dark and scary. It remains one of the darkest and most dramatic installments in the entire franchise, with only the possible exception of Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated and Scooby Apocalypse matching it or coming close.

Zombie Island is also notable for having the first permanent shakeup of the franchise's vocal cast.^± Prior to this, the only main character to have been permanently recast since Where Are You ended in 1970 had been Velma (although A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, being a Spinoff Babies series, necessarily replaced the entire voice cast except for Shaggy and Scooby). Don Messick, Scooby-Doo's long-time voice, retired in 1996 and died in 1997 shortly before recording could begin – the movie is dedicated to his memory; Scooby himself is played by Scott Innes instead. Casey Kasem, who had played Shaggy in every incarnation of the franchise up to this point, declined to reprise his role here after refusing to voice the character in a Burger King commercial (though he would return four years later after he successfully fought for the character to be a vegetarian), so Shaggy is played – for the first and only time – by Billy West^± though Billy did voice the Big Eater one additional time in a Kids' WB! commercial. Daphne and Velma are played here by Mary Kay Bergman and B. J. Ward respectively, replacing original VA's Heather North and Nicole Jaffe (also respectively; both original voices would briefly return four years later). Frank Welker, reprising his role of Fred, was the only original cast member to return.

In 2019, a sequel, Scooby-Doo: Return to Zombie Island was released that partially retconned the events of this film.

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Zombie Island provides examples of:

• Accidental Hero: In an ambiguous example, Simone's cats, who bother Shaggy and Scooby into driving away from the plantation, encountering the zombies and leading to everyone looking for them, when they might have been easy prey for the cat creatures to snatch one by one if they'd stayed in the mansion.
• Actor Allusion: Adrienne Barbeau voices Simone Lenoir, who has several cats and turns out to be a cat-monster herself. Barbeau's best-known animated role is Catwoman from Batman: The Animated Series. Also, as with Swamp Thing, Barbeau's character is involved with strange things in the Louisiana swamps.
• Agent Mulder: Daphne clearly believes that there is some real paranormal stuff out there somewhere, is eager to find it and is annoyed whenever Fred and Velma suggest a more mundane solution.
• Agent Scully: Fred takes his sweet time accepting the possibility that real zombies and ghosts are pursuing them. In his defense, he's spent at least a decade of every monster and ghost he encountered being frauds and fakes.
• Ambiguously Evil: The "cat god". On one hand, he seemed benevolent and generous towards Lena's and Simone's settler group... but on the other hand, when the two asked him for revenge on Moonscar's crew, his response was to turn them into life draining werecats, and withhold the price from them until after the fact.
• And I Must Scream: The existence of the zombies. They were once normal people who had their life force drained by the cat people. Consequently this turned them into aware but immortal zombie monsters.
• Animal Jingoism: Scooby, for some reason, hates cats and angrily chases them whenever he sees them. The cats, likewise, don’t like him and taunt him when something bad happens to him. They seem to make amends in The Stinger, which shows Scooby giving the cats milk.
• Animation Bump: The whole film can be viewed as this to an extent compared to how cheap the animation is in previous installments, but special mention goes to Moonscar's skeleton reviving into a zombie. The grisly animation on his corpse recomposing itself as it regrows flesh and clothing is as fluid as it is disturbing.
• Anti-Villain: Played With. Simone and Lena turn out to be werecats who drain life from others due to the fact that they were cursed as part of a ritual to get revenge on those who slaughtered their townspeople. However, since they start draining the life from innocent people willingly to preserve their immortality, they are still villains. Therefore, while they may have started out as anti-villains, now they are just Serial Killers and become much eviler as they start attacking the innocent.
• Asshole Victim: The pirates, while being trapped as zombies against their will, were the ones who terrorized and caused the deaths of Lena and Simone's entire colony.
• The Atoner: Morgan Moonscar and his pirate crew, Simone and Lena's first victims, and the only ones who were not innocent. In life, they were savage killers who slaughtered an entire colony of innocent settlers for no good reason, but in undeath, they are apparently remorseful for their actions, and have done a Heel–Face Turn in trying to save others from being killed by the werecats.
• Bad Liar: Shaggy tells Lena that Scooby is "great" with cats when she expresses concern that he'll disturb Simone's pets. She quickly calls him out on this when Scooby goes on a rampage against them.
• Balloon Belly: Scooby and Shaggy become comedically obese after eating a ton of contraband food (or more likely just food they've been stealing from people).
• Be Careful What You Wish For:
  • Simone and her servant Lena prayed to cat gods for the power to protect their island from pirates. The gods granted them such power, but also cursed them to drain the lives of others during the harvest moon.
  • Scooby and the gang also suffered this trope after Daphne expressed desires to meet real monsters.
    "This is more haunted stuff than I really wanted..."
• Berserk Button: If Scooby EVER sees cats, he'll go off. And Simone clearly does NOT take kindly to dogs on the premises, especially ones that go after her cats.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Simone and Lena are the true villains of the film, since Jacques is subservient to them and Moonscar was killed long before the events of the film.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Just as Jacques has Shaggy and Scooby in his grasp, the zombies appear and gang up on him, allowing the two to escape.
  • Something similar happens in the climax. When Simone and Lena grab ahold of Shaggy and Scooby, a pair of Confederate zombies jump on them and make the werecats let Shaggy and Scooby go.
• Big Damn Movie: The first movie in the franchise to have truly dramatic and serious stakes, as Scooby Goes Hollywood had No Antagonist and had the conflict revolve around Shaggy and Scooby quitting their roles as television stars to pursue careers in Hollywood movies, while Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers, Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School, and Scooby-Doo! and the Reluctant Werewolf had villains causing the conflict, but were still as lighthearted as your standard Scooby-Doo fare.
• Big Eater: Scooby and Shaggy as usual have enormous appetites.
• Birthday Episode: The Mystery Inc. reunion begins on Daphne's birthday. Ironically, she gets so caught up in her work beforehand, that she loses track of her birthday until everyone else greets her.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Simone, Lena, and Jacques all start out the film as decent and friendly people, especially the jovial Jacques. Then they reveal themselves to be werecats who have been murdering people en masse for centuries.
• Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce: Moonscar Island's peppers are shown to be this and are way too spicy even for Shaggy and Scooby to handle, since it always leaves them searching for a drink to wash it out.
• The Brute: Jacques turns out to be in league with Simone and Lena in their plan to drain their victims of their life force, and is a much larger physical threat to the gang as a werecat.
• Casting Gag: Possibly the casting of Adrienne Barbeau (Catwoman from Batman: The Animated Series) as Simone Lenoir and Jim Cummings (both Fat Cat from Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers and, since 1992, classic Disney ruffian Pete) as Jacques.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: When they're tied up via voodoo doll, and Velma realizes that she pegged Beau all wrong, that he was trying to protect the gang, she takes the time to apologize to him. Beau says apology accepted because he understands why she was suspicious. That and being sacrificed to a cat god takes bigger priority.
• The Catfish: Snakebite Scruggs, a minor character fisherman introduced at the beginning, is constantly trying to catch a massive catfish named "Big Mona". She keeps stealing his bait, and swims up to his houseboat and spits water in his face to taunt him each time she does so.
• Cats Are Mean: Played with. Scooby has an ongoing rivalry with Simone's cats, though the cats themselves are ultimately neutral characters, with no good or evil intentions towards the protagonists. Played straight with Simone and Lena, who are very legitimately evil Cat Girls who gain immortality by stealing visitors' souls. In The Stinger, Scooby and Simone's cats eventually made peace.
• Cats Have Nine Lives: As pointed out by Velma when the cat creatures fail to drain the gang's lives in time.
  "Looks like your nine lives are up!"
• Celestial Deadline: The cat creatures have to drain visitors' life forces every midnight on a harvest moon so they can live forever.
• Cerebus Syndrome: Mystery Inc.'s wacky pursuits of real monsters always turn out to be criminals and con artists in disguise. Then things take a dark turn when the zombies of Moonscar Island turn out to be the real deal.
• Character Development: Daphne retains her more proactive personality from The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and takes it a step further by never once really being a Damsel in Distress (at least, not when others weren't in as much trouble as she).
• Chekhov's Gag: During the "It's Terror Time Again" scene, Shaggy accepts a vine from a zombie to pull Scooby out of some quicksand. It seems like a classic Double Take gag. It's actually foreshadowing that the zombies don't mean any harm.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • The cloth Velma uses to clean her glasses. Later, Simone and Lena use the cloth to power a Velma voodoo doll. Fred's ascot serves a similar purpose in this movie.
  • Midway through the movie, when Shaggy is chasing Scooby, he stops for a moment to stuff his pockets with hot peppers grown on the island. Near the end of the movie, they are used as a mean of self-defence when Scooby sprays Jacques' eyes with one of them.
• Clothing Damage: Actually a minor plot point. Lena and Simone transforming into cat creatures results in their clothes ripping. Velma is then able to use some of the clothing fragments to change the voodoo dolls so they now target Simone and Lena.
• Counterfeit Cash: Counterfeiting is the scheme the 'Moat Monster' at the start of the movie is attempting to cover up.
• Covers Always Lie:
  • The castle on the poster only appears briefly at the beginning of the movie. Most of the movie takes place on a plantation.
  • An earlier cover design◊ (also used for the Scholastic children's book adaptation) depicts zombies that look nothing like those seen in the movie.
• Crazy Cat Lady: Not only does Simone have so many cats for pets on the premises, but she is later revealed to be a werecat herself.
• Crying Wolf: An accidental version. Shaggy and Scooby scream inside the house, which is haunted, after eating spicy peppers. This prompts the gang to believe the duo saw a ghost. After the situation is cleared up, the duo scream after seeing Moonscar's ghost, and Velma is briefly annoyed, thinking they ate the peppers again.
• Darker and Edgier: When it first came out, this was the darkest interpretation of Scooby Doo in existence. It's still one of the scariest with Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated being one of the only other interpretations that could match it in darkness for the original child demographic (which is saying something considering the likes of Scooby Apocalypse and Velma). Plus, this is the first time in Scooby-Doo that characters actually die on-screen.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Simone and Lena were part of a group of settlers who were devoted to a cat god, until Morgan Moonscar and his pirates showed up, and chased the settlers into the water where they were eaten by alligators. Simone and Lena, the only two survivors, prayed to the cat god for revenge against the pirates. The cat god responded by transforming the two of them into cat creatures with the power to destroy Moonscar and his crew. Unfortunately, this blessing came with a curse of its own, requiring them to drain people's life forces every harvest moon to preserve their immortality.
• Dark Is Not Evil: The zombies. They are scary undead monsters... that are just trying to save others from suffering their fate.
• Day in the Limelight: The film mostly centres on Daphne Blake.
• Dead Hat Shot: After the cat creatures were Reduced to Dust from missing the Celestial Deadline, Simone's pendant falls atop their remains.
• Deal with the Devil: Simone and Lena made a pact with their cat-god to get revenge on Morgan Moonscar and his pirates, but were cursed to become werecats that had to feed on other living beings to stay alive. Jacques made the same deal to become immortal.
• Death Equals Redemption: Morgan Moonscar and his fellow pirates come back as zombies and successfully manage to hold off the villains long enough for the spell to be broken.
• Deconstruction: Of the classic Scooby-Doo formula. The gang eventually got bored of always catching costumed crooks and split up. After they reunite, they make it their goal to find a genuine supernatural mystery.
  • Also the usual formula is the gang finding that the local Monster of the Week is just a guy in a mask with very rare exceptions of them being real- trying to keep others away from their property so they can get rich/revenge/etc. to move on from their perceived grievances. In this case, the real monsters invert this by having the monsters disguising themselves as humans after discarding their humanity long ago in order to ensnare victims into their property to keep them forever and have long since discarded their grudges for the sake of longevity and sadism- becoming more monstrous than the people that they sought vengeance against in the first place.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Simone is very cold to the gang at first, coming across as a bit snooty, and unhappy that they were invited out by Lena, but (aside from her annoyance at Scooby) gets warmer, laughing approvingly after Shaggy and Scooby have the hot peppers, and telling the gang to call her by her first name and showing interest in their investigation. It's all an act though as she is not only planning to sacrifice them to maintain their immortality and is even more scornful to the gang after the reveal.
• Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: Fred whistles the theme song to Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? at one part.
• Destroy the Evidence: Fred's camera which was used to capture footage of all the haunted goings-on at Moonscar Island is lost in quicksand, causing it to sink and lose all the evidence.
• Dolled-Up Installment: The movie was adapted from the story of an unmade episode of SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron, "Succubus!" (a.k.a. "The Curse of Kataluna"); the original story was supposed to have a succubus.
• The Dragon: Jacques is Simone and Lena's lackey.
• Eat the Evidence: While searching for contraband food in airport luggage, Shaggy and Scooby manage to eat it. This results in their dismissal from their job.
• Emerging from the Shadows: Lena is introduced coming out of the shadows. Simone later does this when the gang finds her in the voodoo chamber and her and Lena's true colors are revealed.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Morgan Moonscar and his pirates were brutal killers in life, but even in their undead state, they try to scare people away from the area so innocents don't suffer the same fate as they did.
• Evil All Along: Simone, Lena and Jacques act as kind and hospitable people to lure their victims to their island, so they can drain their life force and attain immortality.
• Exact Words: Lena wasn't kidding when she said the peppers on Moonscar Island were the hottest ones in Louisiana, much to Shaggy and Scooby's detriment when they tried the peppers. The latter two use this to their advantage when they use one of the peppers to blind Jacques in the eyes.
• Extremely Short Timespan: Not counting the prologue, the movie is set over a timeframe of 2 1/2 days.
• Expressive Accessory: Simone wears an arched pendant resembling a cat's head for most of the movie. When she and Lena reveal they are cat people, the pendant becomes an actual cat's face.
• Eye Scream: Scooby uses one of the island's peppers to blind Jacques towards the end of the film.
• Face–Heel Turn: Simone and Lena were originally only trying to get even with the Pirates that wronged them, but once they were cursed, they remorselessly murdered countless people who did nothing to wrong them.
• Fair Cop: Beau turns out to be an undercover cop, and Daphne takes the time to talk about his attractiveness.
• Family-Unfriendly Death:
  • In the flashback, when the pirates force the villagers into alligator-infested waters. Their deaths occur offscreen, but you still hear the screams and other horrible sounds, as the camera shows the horrified faces of the two girls that survived because they hid behind a tree.
  • The zombies all suffered a family unfriendly undeath, getting their life essences drained out until they were shriveled, but still very much aware corpses. They certainly wish they had actually had deaths; even when they finally do pass on, the flesh is stripped from their bones as they collapse into piles of dust.
  • Simone, Lena and Jacques after they miss their deadline for feeding on souls. They disintegrate horrifically - you can actually see the skin being stripped from their bones as they screech in abject terror.
• Family-Unfriendly Violence: One zombie has his head ripped off, and two others get cut in half by a tree branch.
• Fate Worse than Death: The zombies. They were drained of their life by the werecats but remain trapped in limbo as fully aware undead with no way to pass on to the afterlife and no way to properly communicate with the living other than their moans due to how badly decayed their bodies are.
• Faux Affably Evil:
  • Simone and Lena's tragic backstory can elicit some sympathy for them both. However, it doesn't change the fact that they have been draining innocents of their life force for centuries in order to maintain their immortality, and intend to do the same to Scooby and the gang.
  • Jacques presents himself as polite and jovial but is a sadistic sociopath and serial killer luring victims to Moonscar Island to be killed. He acts sadistically polite to Shaggy and Scooby when he reveals his werecat form and chases them.
• Fire-Breathing Diner: Scooby and Shaggy exhale flames after eating the Moonscar Island peppers.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: Jacques arrives at the dock right as Shaggy and Scooby are desperately trying to escape, after it had been earlier said the ferry didn't run at night. This makes him suspicious, which is immediately confirmed, as he transforms into a werecat as soon as he steps out of the boat.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Zombie Island has several hints linking to the nature of the zombies: they generally don't try to physically harm the gang, and one of them even helps Shaggy save Scooby in the chase sequence.
  • The cats in Simone and Lena's house, coupled with the numerous shots and references to the Moon all across the movie, foreshadow that the two women are actually werecats.
  • The message that Morgan Moonscar carves into the kitchen wall early on in the film ("Get out" and "Beware") is interpreted as a threat by the main characters. As the film progresses, it becomes very clear that it was actually a warning, and the pirate was really trying to warn the gang that Simone and Lena were not to be trusted.
  • Simone mentions that the zombies get more restless once night falls. During the daytime, only Morgan Moonscar shows up, while a confederate colonel and an entire horde of zombies spring to life at nightfall. It's a hint that the cat-creatures' ritual only happens at night, as that's when the living need the zombies' protection from being sacrificed.
  • Simone and Lena's true nature was vaguely hinted when Lena opens the curtains in Fred's room to give him a view of the harvest moon. As she turns to walk away, her entire front side is darkly shadowed.
  • It's only visible for a second, but the look in Jacques eyes get a bit creepier as he laughs and says that if they want a haunted house, they've come to the right place.
  • Note how Lena has a sly expression when the gang first encounters her, foreshadowing she's going to lure them to Moonscar Island as part of Simone's plan to drain their life forces. Also, she sounds smug almost the whole time.
• Forgot Their Own Birthday: Apparently, Daphne forgot her own birthday during production of her show, and she's excited when Shaggy, Scooby and Velma surprise her with a late one during the gang's reunion.
• From Bad to Worse: In the climax of the movie, the gang not only discovers that the zombies they've been encountering are real, but the island is swarming with them. Then it's revealed that Leona, Simone, and Jacques are immortal cat creatures and the zombies were actual their victims.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Lena and Simone were colonists of Louisiana who lost everything due to Morgan Moonscar. Their revenge turned them into life-draining cat monsters who have killed what is implied to be thousands of people over 200 years to maintain their immortality.
• Game Face: Lena and Simone reveal their cat-creature faces when they're preparing to sacrifice Velma, Daphne, Fred, and Beau. Possibly just to mess with their heads, and their victims are already helpless.
• Gave Up Too Soon: As revealed by Shaggy and Scooby knocking some dirt off the side, the skeleton of one zombie is in the pit Beau dug, just a few inches from being exposed. The reveal that he was actively searching for dead bodies due to investigating the disappearances when he dug that pit makes this even more pronounced.
• Genre Shift: From a straight Scooby-Doo story, to a supernatural horror mystery film.
• Get Out!: The ghost of Moonscar carves this phrase into the wall as a threat to Mystery Inc. It later turns out to actually be a warning, so that the gang avoid the same fate Moonscar and his crew faced.
• Glowing Eyes: At the end of the movie, Simone’s cats somehow got aboard the ferry and their eyes start glowing as they meow at Scooby.
• God of Evil: Simone and Lena's cat god that gave them the power to murder the pirates and then drain the life of innocent souls.
• Gone Horribly Right:
  • Daphne laments that her search for real, dangerous monsters has succeeded all too well.
  • Simone and Lena pray to their cat god so that they can get revenge on the pirates that murdered their friends and family. They succeed, only to become cat monsters that suck the life out of others.
• Good All Along:
  • Beau is an undercover cop hired as a gardener. His behavior towards everyone is fairly suspicious enough, until you realize the holes on the island is him trying to find any dead bodies that would expose Simone and Lena. And throughout the night, neither him nor Velma encountered any zombies until Lena and Simone become werecats.
  • The zombies themselves. Morgan Moonscar is initially built up as the Big Bad and the other zombies are thought to be murderous monsters. Of course, it turns out they're the victims of Simone, Lena, and Jacques, and are simply trying to save others from suffering their fate. Daphne lampshades this when the zombies get Shaggy and Scooby away from the cat monsters, though Shaggy has a hard time believing her.
• Gory Discretion Shot: Applied during the flashback, when Morgan Moonscar and his pirates drive Simone and Lena's settlement into the bayou. The camera shows the alligators converging upon the terrified settlers, but cuts off to Simone and Lena's horrified reaction right before the carnage starts.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The seemingly malevolent cat god is an actual deity who gave Simone and Lena their powers to drain innocent people, but otherwise isn't directly involved in the plot.
• The Greatest Story Never Told: After Fred inadvertently drops the camera into quicksand and the zombies disappear along with Lena, Simone and Jacques, the gang laments that no one will believe their adventure occurred. They realize Simone's only surviving servant Beau can act as a witness, but even he doubts anyone will believe them.
• Hairstyle Inertia: Lena keeps her hair the same way in the present as she did two hundred years ago, complete with a headband. Simone by contrast had long hair in the past but wears it short now.
• Heel–Face Turn: It happened to Morgan Moonscar and his crew after their deaths. The above Foreshadowing entry makes clear that they don't want to kill the gang: in spite of being real zombies, they want to scare them away from the area (which was ironically a much more noble version of what most of the series' previous villains wanted to do).
• High-Pressure Emotion: At one point when Scooby and Shaggy eat the peppers, their entire bodies turn red and red smoke bursts out of their ears and noses.
• Hoist by Their Own Petard: Scooby uses one of Moonscar Island's own chili peppers to blind Jacques and Velma and Daphne turn Simone and Lena's love of voodoo dolls against them by using their own dolls with their likenesses.
• Hollywood Voodoo: A textbook example among children's media, with the villains making voodoo dolls of most of the heroes to immobilize them. They do at least say it's done with "magic wax".
• Hope Spot: Shaggy and Scooby are out among swarming zombies, as the others get captured. The duo think they're safe when they see Jacques's boat dock, but then Jacques turns into a cat person.
• Human Sacrifice: In a Hold the Line moment, the zombies keep the real villains at bay so Scooby's gang can get permanently rid of them.
• Hypocrite: Despite being a werecat, Simone at one point refers to Scooby as a beast.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • Early in the film after they've been fired from their airport security job, Shaggy and Scooby worry about the prospect of going hungry and turning to skin and bones. This is after they've become obese from eating tons of contraband food.
  • Daphne gets repeatedly annoyed with Lena flirting with Fred, and the latter's playing along with it. Later, Daphne says that Beau is "kind of cute", and Fred can be seen looking very annoyed.
• Incongruously-Dressed Zombie: A rare justified case of zombies having wardrobe that makes them stand out. The zombies are an eclectic bunch of victims taken at various points throughout history, so they range from 18th century pirates all the way up to modern tourists.
• Irony: In the past Scooby-Doo media, people in costumes try to cover their crimes by dressing up as a monster and scare off whoever tries to investigate the area. Zombies on the other hand do this intentionally so there would not be any more victims and resurrect as a decades-old zombie.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Beau. He was antagonistic towards the Mystery Inc. gang and was annoyed by Scooby and Shaggy messing up his gardening, but he became protective of Mystery Inc. when the zombies came to life. Even when Velma made her suspicions of him clear, he kept her safe from walking into quicksand and tried to attack Lena when she and Simone reveal their true natures. He also forgave Velma when she apologized for suspecting him.
• Karmic Death: Simone, Lena, and Jacques are killed by the very curse they possess when they are unable to drain the lives of Mystery Inc. in time to survive the harvest moon.
• Kick the Dog: There was no reason whatsoever for Morgan Moonscar to butcher the island settlers. This petty act of cruelty costs him, and hundreds of others for years afterward, very dearly indeed.
• Knight of Cerebus: Lena, Simone and Jacques are not your usual Scooby Doo villains, given that their scheme is killing a bunch of people to remain immortal, and the fact that the are bonafide supernatural beings as opposed to crooks wearing masks.
• Last-Minute Hookup: Velma and Beau show signs of becoming a couple once Beau is revealed to be an undercover agent investigating the disappearances.
• Life Drinker: Simone and Lena were the only survivors of a group of settlers who worshipped a cat-god, the rest being slaughtered by the pirate Captain Morgan Moonscar. They prayed to the cat-god for the power to take revenge, and it was granted in the form of the ability to transform into werecats and immortality, but only if they drain the life force of living people every harvest moon. By the time Mystery, Inc. arrives at Moonscar Island, the bayou is littered with hundreds of undead corpses who have fallen victim to Simone and Lena. In the climax, the gang nearly suffers this fate - and Scooby and Shaggy actually start to get their life drained from them and begin to die on-screen.
• Magic Skirt: Averted mostly, as Velma has to hold onto her skirt and keep it in place each time she gets gently levitated. Though the trope happens when she and Daphne are both levitated and thrown about violently.
• Master Actor: Beau appears to be The Killjoy who snarls at the gang but it's revealed he's a Southern Gentlemen, Louisiana PD Detective. The Jerkass persona was an act so no one would get close to him and potentially blow his cover. He breaks character in the climax when Simone and Lena incapacitate Freddy, Velma, and Daphne, shouting You Leave Him Alone! and attempting to rescue them.
  • Lena, and Jascque are this as well, acting as jovial and concerned samaritans when in reality they're smug, sociopathic, and sadistic monsters. Simone to a lesser extent, with a cold aloof yet caring personality that hides the sadistic and scornful nature- with the aloofness implied to be her not quite acting right and her true nature showing through.
• Mighty Glacier: In spite of their slowness, the zombies are apparently physically strong enough to give the werecats a run for their money - at one point, two zombies each manage to tackle and momentarily stun a werecat. Though, this could also be justified by the zombies in question being Civil War soldiers.
• Monochrome Past: Simone's tragic backstory is depicted with old-fashioned sepia tone.
• Mood Whiplash: This film goes back and forth from the usual Hanna-Barbera cartoonish hijinks (mostly surrounding around Shaggy and Scooby) that would make children laugh to the dead-serious and scary situations that would give children nightmares.
• Motive Decay: Happens pretty much immediately to Lena and Simone after they exact their vengeance on Morgan Moonscar and the rest of the pirates. While they did turn to understandably resort to selling their humanity to their god in an act of desperation and grief, rather than simply taking solace in avenging their fellow settlers, they instead decided to spend centuries luring others to the island in order to drain their life force simply to prolong their own existence.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Fred tries on his orange ascot while getting ready for dinner at Simone's mansion, but tosses it aside after realizing it looks ridiculous. Also see You Meddling Kids below.
  • Daphne being the believer and Fred being the skeptic is a reversal of their roles from A Pup Named Scooby-Doo.
• Near-Villain Victory: The werecats grab a hold of Shaggy and Scooby in the climax and nearly succeed in draining their life force as they age rapidly, until they get controlled by voodoo dolls of their own that force them away from Shaggy and Scooby, both of whose youths are miraculously restored.
• Never Say "Die": Zigzagged. Scooby and Shaggy repeatedly refer to the zombies as being "dead," but Simone points out during her tragic backstory that she and Lena "destroyed" the pirates upon granting their curse from the cat god. Although in the latter case, regular old death would have been preferable.
• Never Smile at a Crocodile: Alligators serve as a common danger in the film, including trying to eat Scooby after he accidentally fell off the boat. Morgan Moonscar and his men drove the other settlers from Simone and Lena's village into the swamp, where alligators surrounded and presumably ate them.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: After subduing the others with Hollywood Voodoo, the villains say they didn't bother creating such dolls for Shaggy and Scooby, as they considered them hapless idiots not worth the effort. Those two running around in a blind panic instead of being restrained is a big reason why everything gets derailed for the villains. Shaggy and Scooby even slam into Simone and Lena before the others can be drained, knocking the dolls to the ground and giving Velma a chance to get free. By the time the villains manage to grab Shaggy and Scooby for the ritual, the others have managed to perform a little voodoo trick of their own.
• Nightmare Face: Simone gives a terrifying face to the camera when she partially undergoes her werecat transformation and again with Lena when they fully transform.
• No Immortal Inertia: When they miss their deadline for feeding, the three villains all horrifically disintegrate to dust within a few seconds.
• No Ontological Inertia: When Simone and Lena are draining Shaggy and Scooby's life forces, they rapidly age upon contact, but once they are yanked away thanks to Daphne and Velma making voodoo dolls of them, Shaggy and Scooby immediately return to normal seconds later.
  Shaggy: Like, I was beginning to feel like a raisin!
• Not a Mask: Fred tries to remove a mask from a zombie. Instead, he tears the zombie's head off.
  Fred: [trying to pull the "mask" off] It's the gardener!
  Daphne: No.
  Fred: [keeps pulling] It's the fisherman!
  Shaggy: No.
  Fred: [keeps pulling] It's the ferryman!
  Scooby: Ro.
  Fred: Ah... maybe it's... [pulls the head clean off] ...real?
• Not a Zombie:
  • A rare case of not noticing the zombies are real undead being completely justified given the characters involved. All characters except Shaggy and Scooby are skeptical that the island is inhabited by real monsters, so when the gang manages to knock out a zombie, Fred pulls on the creature's head to "unmask" it, but tears it from the body instead.
  • Averted when one of the mysteries the gang is solving involves a zombie ship captain (which happens to be a woman in the costume).
• Not Evil, Just Misunderstood:
  • Beau, the gardener, seems like a shady guy and always gets annoyed when his flowerbeds are ruined. However, he's really an undercover police officer investigating the disappearances of missing tourists who ultimately learns the truth.
  • The zombies so very much. Yes, they're quite terrifying and they know it. That's the point. They're not trying to hurt or eat Scooby and his friends. They're trying to save them from being consumed by Simone and Lena.
• Not Now, Kiddo: Beau while walking with Velma tries telling her to stop. She won't listen to him and says outright she suspects him of being behind the zombie happenings. Beau reaches down and grabs a huge rock...because she was about to walk into quicksand and he tosses the rock to demonstrate.
• Offscreen Teleportation: During the opening chase sequence, Scooby and Shaggy use Scooby-Dooby Doors to run away from the Moat Monster. When the Moat Monster has Freddy cornered later on, Scooby suddenly drops in from above into the Moat Monster's hands.
• Oh, Crap!: Several characters have horrified reactions to realizing they're screwed several times throughout the film. One in particular that stands out is Fred when he finally gets it that the zombies really are real, and really are trying to kill them ...Or not. The zombies are actually trying to scare them away, so the real villains won't sacrifice them to their cat god.
• Older Than They Look: Although Simone and Lena look like regular young adults, they're really over two hundred years old, due to the cat god's curse rendering them immortal as long as they drain a visitor's life force every harvest moon. The same goes for Jacques, who looks old but is given immortality by them.
• One-Man Army: Simone and Lena, and by extension possibly Jacques are implied to be this, considering the former two butchered Morgan Moonscar's entire crew as well as destroyed a presumably much better-armed Confederate army regiment.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: The pirate captain, Morgan McReight, who received the nickname Morgan Moonscar because of the moon-shaped scar on his face. He's the namesake of the island the gang visits.
• Otherworldly Communication Failure: Moonscar and the other pirate ghosts aren't haunting the island to hurt or harm humans. They are haunting the island to ward humans away and save them from Simone, Lena, and Jacques who are soul sucking, nearly immortal, werebeasts.
• Our Werebeasts Are Different: Specifically, this story gives us werecats. The curse was brought on by invoking the power of some vaguely described cat god that was worshiped by the island's original inhabitants. The werecats transform entirely at will, but usually remain in their human forms. It isn't clear if, or how, others can be turned into werecats in the typical werebeast fashion (bites, scratches, etc) - the two original werecats have only ever turned one person, but it isn't explained how they did this. The curse also grants immortality, provided the werecats steal the life forces of others every harvest moon.
• Our Zombies Are Different: Very different. Not the flesh-eating kind or the brain-eating kind. Or the evil kind. They're the completely sentient victims of the soul stealing magical cat people, so they want only to try and scare humans away, so they don't join their ranks. Also, they only seem to be active for a short time before the cat people's "feeding time," and initially manifest as ghosts; it's only when the chosen night descends that they can physically manifest as zombies.
• Outdated Outfit: During the opening sequence, the gang is seen in their classic outfits from the original show. For the rest of the film — and for that matter the rest of the series up until Mystery Inc., they wear more modern clothes (save for Shaggy). Fred even throws his prized ascot away.
• Out of Job, into the Plot: Shaggy and Scooby get fired from their jobs as airport customs security early on in the movie, shortly before reuniting with the gang for the road trip.
• Pet the Dog:
  • When Scooby gets trapped in quicksand, a Confederate zombie passes Shaggy a vine to help pull him out. Then it turns out that they're not actually evil.
  • Lena expresses genuine concern for Jacques when she hears him being attacked.
• Police Are Useless: Subverted; Beau reveals that Louisiana PD took interest in the number of disappearances that happened around Moonscar Island at the same time every year, namely tourists and people with families. He went undercover to investigate Simone and Lena since by Occam's Razor they were the most likely suspects for kidnapping or murder. Beau didn't factor in that the Scooby gang would visit, which meant he had to focus on protecting them as well while gathering evidence. While Simone and Lena ambush him in the climax, he does all he can to shield Daphne, Velma and Freddy.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: Many would even contest that this is the best Scooby-Doo story ever. Hands down. And, as stated, it started out as an episode of a completely different series which had the darkness as standard fare.
• Punk: While The Ghost is Here is of the Pop Punk variety, as was popular at the time, It's Terror Time dives head first into straight-up Horror Punk...and it's as spectacularly awesome and fitting as you'd expect for one of the best, and genuinely horrifying, Scooby-Doo films ever.
• Predecessor Villain: Morgan Moonscar attacked Lena and Simone's village, causing the villagers to be eaten by alligators. This drove them to become cat monsters. In the present day, Moonscar is a tortured zombie haunted in undeath by his atrocities, and he is now trying to save the gang from his fate.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Velma says "Looks like your nine lives are up!" when midnight has passed and the cat creatures have failed to drain the gang's life forces before then, ending the curse and causing them to be destroyed.
• Putting the Band Back Together: The story opens up after the gang have been separated for a number of years. Given how a few minor appearances aside this was the first new Scooby media in seven years, there's a bit of Reality Subtext to it. The film's success is most likely why the first live action movie used this to set up the plot of that film.
• Policeman Dog: While Scooby-Doo has always been a sort-of freelance detective with Mystery Inc in the franchise, Scooby and Shaggy actually work as airport customs security at the start of the movie, since Scooby is so good at sniffing out illegal foreign food items. However, since they are unable to resist eating all the contraband, they are fired from their job.
• Quicksand Sucks: Quicksand is a major hazard on the island. It also swallows up Freddy's camera, which had proof about the monsters.
• Quieting the Unquiet Dead: After the cat creatures disintegrate to dust, all the zombies proceed to turn back into bones. Velma explains that now that they've been avenged, their spirits can finally rest in peace.
• Rapid Aging: This happens to Shaggy and Scooby when Simone and Lena are draining their life forces, only to return to normal after they lose physical contact with them. Eventually it occurs with Simone, Lena and Jacques, since they missed their Celestial Deadline and turn to dust instantly.
• Real After All: The main theme of the film. After years of dealing with people in costumes trying to scare away people, the Scooby Gang embark on a new mystery and come across real monsters, and real dangerous villains with nefarious plots.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Casey Kasem refused to return to voice Shaggy unless the character became vegetarian like him. As Shaggy eats crawfish in the film, he is now voiced by Billy West.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Beau is revealed to be this. He was being a jerk to the gang because he was worried they would become the next group of people missing on the island, while he investigated Simone and Lena. As Velma says he's a suspect, his response is to use a rock to warn her about quicksand right by her feet. In the end, he says he plans to file a report of what he found, even if his superiors won't believe him. What's more, Beau tells the gang that despite there being no proof, they are still alive and that's no small deal.
• Red Herring: This movie started a trend of an entire gallery of herrings.
  • Beau seems pretty suspicious and is pretty hostile to the gang. He turns out to be an undercover cop investigating the disappearances on Moonscar Island and becomes the Sixth Ranger to the group.
  • Snakebite Scruggs is quickly shrugged off as a suspect since while he's a nasty guy, he still saved Shaggy and Scooby from alligators.
  • Morgan Moonscar is built up as the main antagonist, especially after his ghost carves a warning into Simone's kitchen wall. Only he's the Greater-Scope Villain who's pulled a Heel–Face Turn in death, and was the first victim of Simone and Lena, the true Big Bads.
• Reduced to Dust: At the end of the film, the werecats and zombies turn into dust when the curse expires.
• Revenge Before Reason: Lena and Simone focus their attention on draining Shaggy and Scooby after the two hinder their ceremony on top of all the trouble they caused throughout the movie, rather than draining Velma, Daphne, Fred, and Beau, who are still restained. This decision buys the four enough time to escape and intervene, costing the villains their lives.
• Rewatch Bonus: Those who've already seen the movie will know not to trust Simone and Lena, so it becomes noticeable that Lena is absent when Velma randomly begins levitating in kitchen. This foreshadows not only the existence of the voodoo dolls but also the fact that her and Simone are the ones who made them.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Velma is right to think Beau is doing more than just gardening. However, he’s only investigating the disappearances of the many people who came to Moonscar Island and never returned rather than doing anything illegal like Velma initially suspected.
• Romantic False Lead: Daphne and Fred develop crushes on Beau and Lena, respectively, invoking each other's jealousy. This leads to nowhere as the former is an undercover detective with more things on his mind than romance and the latter brought the gang including Fred to the island in order to drag them- seeing them as food from the start.
• Running Gag:
  • Scooby and Shaggy sampling some of Simone's spiciest peppers. They use it to fend off Jacques in the climax.
  • The gang unintentionally interferes with Snakebite's attempts to catch a catfish named Big Mona.
  • "Dog? Where?"
  • Scooby Doo has a tendency to chase Simone's cats.
• Scooby-Dooby Doors: Played with briefly at the beginning, where Shaggy and Scooby are running from The Moat Monster, and use a hallway with doors to this effect while the Moat Monster just stands at the end of the hall and watches them.
• "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: Averted in the main villains' plan, but played straight for all the "monsters" the gang encounters before Lena invites them to Moonscar Island. It's why the gang disbanded.
  Chris: Got a little boring, eh?
• Ship Tease: There are scenes that imply some romantic tensions with Fred and Daphne. They stayed together when Mystery Inc. temporarily went their separate ways and Fred was part of Daphne’s show. There are also scenes where Fred expresses jealousy of Beau and Daphne expresses jealousy of Lena because of the implied attraction between Fred and Daphne. They’re also seen embracing each other and watching the sunrise at the end with Daphne stating that the island could be a romantic spot.
• Shout-Out: The name "Simone" is a reference to French actress Simone Simon who starred as the werecat woman in the 1942 classic Cat People.
• Shown Their Work: When Beau is revealed as an undercover cop and a police inside man, given he was nearly killed by the cat creatures, it is stunning that the police, knowing people have a tendency to vanish on the island, would put an inside man in such jeopardy, especially given there was no proof of foul play. However, this is usually how the cops investigate remote area crimes such as disappearances with no firm proof of criminal involvement. If there is a person, try to get them employed and have them investigate it. Either way, they have a suspect or some idea of what happened. If Beau found some hints of what happened, he could tell his superiors, if he died, well then they have two or three suspects.
• Sickly Green Glow:
  • The Life Energy that reanimates the zombies is depicted as an eerie, green fog-like substance that melds with their skeletal remains and returns to them their skin, muscles, and clothes.
  • While the werecats are draining a victim's life force, as shown when Simone and Lena attempt to do this to Shaggy and Scooby, they and their victims glow an unhealthy green as the victims rapidly age.
• Skeptic No Longer: Fred's denial of the supernatural vanishes very quickly.
• Somewhere, a Herpetologist Is Crying: Alligators are shown with their lower teeth sticking out in some shots.
• Southern Gothic: The setting is a creepy Louisiana bayou.
• Spanner in the Works:
  • Lena and Simone's decision not to make wax dolls out of Shaggy and Scooby ends up being one of the deciding factors of them missing their deadline in the climax.
  • Beau explains that his plan was to gather evidence behind the missing tourists as an undercover detective since Simone and Lena were the most likely suspects but had been good about covering their tracks. The Scooby gang arriving forced him to adjust because he had to worry about their safety during his investigation.
• Stab the Scorpion: After much criticism from Velma, Beau picks up a large rock, and it looks like he's going to hurt her with it. Instead, he throws it in front of her, revealing that she was about to step into quicksand. She thanks him, but she still sees him as a suspect. He takes it in stride.
• Start of Darkness: As told via Flashback by Lena and Simone — they originally gained dark powers to get vengeance on the pirates that destroyed their home, but the price of the power turned them to evil.
• Status Quo Is God:
  • Mystery Inc. has broken up? Not for long.
  • Averted with the events of Zombie Island, which saw the series introducing more real monsters for the gang in many of their future adventures to come. At the very least, compared to the sporadic encounters with genuine supernatural entities from earlier times that were for the most part, harmless, these monsters are legitimately more threatening.
• The Stinger: At the end of the film, Scooby Breaks the Fourth Wall by cutting open the black screen. After Scooby gives milk to Simone's cats as an act of reconciliation, he lets out his "Scooby-Dooby-Doo!" Character Catchphrase.
• Stock Audio Clip:
  • There's a particular audio clip of Shaggy struggling that's used about four or five times throughout the movie. Once you notice, it's very distracting.
  • There’s another clip of Scooby saying "Yeah" that’s used three times in succession and throughout the rest of the movie.
• Stripped to the Bone: Simone, Lena, and Jacques rot away into skeletons that are then Reduced to Dust when they fail to drain any life forces for their Celestial Deadline. Afterward, the zombies turn into piles of bones after having their avenged spirits leave for the afterlife.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • The gang splits up because they got fed up with all the ideas of fighting people in masks. Turns out that no matter how good you are with people, when it comes to doing the same thing over and over again, the group will split because someone wants something different. Given that Daphne was the one who split first, even if it isn't stated exactly on screen, it quickly led the other gang members to part ways, albeit reluctantly.
  • Simone and Lena were able to kill large amounts of people from several centuries in large part due to the fact the area was remote, the time period usually had people die from the disease, ships sinking, and war, and if it wasn't that, they were usually fugitives who no one would mind. Once it becomes obvious more modern tourist people start disappearing on the island, it doesn't take long for the cops to launch an investigation, and given Beau was The Mole for them working as a gardener, it quickly becomes obvious they were considered prime suspects. Beau mentions this, that the number of disappearances in the area was unusual and he was sent to investigate.
  • Why are most of the zombies in the area of the swamp or near them? Simone, Lena, and Jacques realized very quickly that while pirates and colonists, along with soldiers could be washed away, large amounts of people from the modern era could not, so they threw the bodies in the swamp for several reasons. Number one, the alligators are a massive deterrent. The quicksand, while the zombies seem to be smart enough to move around it, force lengthily detours that are long enough to delay from getting to the chamber. But thirdly, in the event the cops suspected them of murder or launched an investigation, they threw them into the swamp to ensure that it wouldn't be an area close enough to the house to portray them as potential murderers.
  • The bayou alone is shown to be much more dangerous than the zombies, with Shaggy almost being eaten by an alligator and Scooby almost getting stuck in quicksand.
  • The Scooby Snax Velma has been saving for Shaggy and Scooby since the gang broke up have gotten stale.
  • When Scooby and Shaggy both jump into Fred's arms, he can't actually hold both of them up and so they fall over instead of having one of their usual carry-and-run scenes.
• Time Skip: The movie begins with a flashback of a routine mystery, then progresses several years after the disbandment of Mystery Inc. Daphne hosts a popular talk show, Fred produces her show, Scooby and Shaggy work as security at an airport, and Velma owns a store selling mystery books.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Sure, she would lose them in the next few movies, but Daphne. Now she's an investigative reporter, determined to find a genuine supernatural event. She goes toe to toe with three werecats, and helps stop them, becoming a Damsel out of Distress in the process.
  • Really the entire gang. The Moat monster from the beginning and the various fakes from "The Ghost is Here" scene are knocked out and captured through dumb luck and clumsiness. The villains at the end of the movie get fought by the gang with some real resourcefulness and grit.
• Trailers Always Spoil:
  • One of the alternate posters for the film features Jacques in his were-cat form.
  • In addition, the trailers promise "this time, the monsters are real", and at least one used the tagline during the scene of the vampire bat monster chasing Scooby and Shaggy... but just a few moments before, it showed the monster being unmasked as a fake.
• Transformation Sequence: Simone and Lena have one as they transform into werecats and prepare to drain the gang's life forces.
• Truth in Television: While it may be harsh on Scooby’s part, when Snakebite Scruggs says how his hunting pig, Mojo, has a better sense of smell and is smarter than any dog, he is actually correct. Pigs actually do have better senses of smell and are more intelligent than dogs.
• Uncanny Valley: In their normal guises, Lena, Simone, and Jacques have more subdued and realistic designs compared to the main cast, which retrospectively seem like unexpressive masks hiding something. Then in their midway transformation, they develop yellow eyes and feline-like features which create an abnormal eeriness to Simone and Lena's faces. And finally, the full transformation, looking like a nightmarish mixture of feline were-beast and human-like features that looks unnatural to look at. Of course, given the tone of the film, it's fitting.
• Undercover Cop Reveal: Beau, although not in a way that matters to the plot.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Simone and Lena were part of a group of settlers who made Moonscar Island their home, until Morgan Moonscar and his pirates invaded the island and drove everyone into the swamp except for themselves. They begged their Cat God to put a curse on the pirates for what they did to them. The wish was granted, the two became cat creatures and destroyed the pirates; but it wasn't until then did they realize that invoking the Cat God's power had cursed them as well, requiring that they drain life forces of those lured to the island every harvest moon at midnight to preserve their immortality.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Despite not being the main villain, Morgan Moonscar and his pirate crew are the reason why the movie even happens in the first place; When they raided the island two centuries ago and had most of the islanders eaten by alligators. As a result, the two surviving settlers, Simone and Lena, prayed to their cat god for a chance to get revenge, and they were transformed into life-draining cat creatures that ended up draining them of their life force, and then the life force of several innocent victims simply to stay alive after, turning all of them into zombies.
• Villain of Another Story: The various criminals unmasked during the "The Ghost is Here" montage.
• Villains Out Shopping: Simone, Lena, and Jacques are shown to lead perfectly normal lives outside of the day and night of the harvest moon, working normal jobs, buying groceries, etc. This arguably makes them more revolting and terrifying, as they’re so conditioned to their annual murder spree that they can still carry on with mundane lives when they don’t need human sacrifices.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Simone and Lena invert wearing a monster costume like previous Scooby-Doo villains by being monstrous werecats underneath their human disguises.
• Voodoo Doll: Used by Simone and Lena at one point. Daphne and Velma then turn this around, using the dolls on them.
• Walk Into Camera Obstruction: With Lena as she is showing Fred to his room.
• Warning Mistaken for Threat: The ghost of the pirate captain Morgan Moonscar carved the words "Get Out!" and "Beware" into the kitchen wall of the mansion. Mystery Inc later learns that he was simply trying to warn them about Simone and Lena's true nature as life-draining werecats.
• Wham Line:
  • Velma makes an interesting observation that foreshadows what Lena and Simone are planning.
    Velma: Her story about Simone getting dragged away by zombies wasn't true. I saw the footprints of Simone's heels. She wasn't dragged, she walked down that tunnel!
  • Afterwards, when Simone and Lena reveal their true colors:
    Daphne: You won't get away with this!
    Simone: I've been getting away with it for two hundred years!
• Wham Shot:
  • Fred encounters a zombie, and attempts to remove its mask:
    Fred: It's the gardener!
    Daphne: No!
    Fred: It's the fisherman!
    Shaggy: No!
    Fred: It's the ferryman!
    Scooby: No!
    Fred: Maybe it's... [Pulls the zombie's head off] Real?
  • Lena worriedly informs the group that Simone was kidnapped by the zombies and escorts them to where they had allegedly taken her. Velma has trouble believing Lena's story when she examines the footprints, and when she turns to interrogate her, Lena's expression has changed to a smug look, revealing that it was indeed a lie and that they had been lured into a trap.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: A Running Gag throughout the movie is Scooby chasing Simone's cats every time he sees them. The leader of Simone's cats is a white cat that torments Scooby more than the others, but it suddenly disappears from the movie while the others are still constantly seen. Even during the ending where the cats are shown to have boarded the ship with Scooby and co., leaving the island, the white cat is nowhere to be seen, not even in the post credits scene where Scooby makes peace with the cats.
• When the Clock Strikes Twelve: Within the midnight hour of a harvest moon, the cat creatures must drain the visitors' life forces to preserve their immortality.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: Simone and Lena do. Every harvest moon at midnight, they must drain the life forces of those lured to Moonscar Island to stay alive.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: From Simone and Lena's flashback, they appeared to originally be perfectly normal individuals, albeit ones who worshiped some pagan cat deity, and they only prayed to be transformed into werecats to get revenge on the pirates for slaughtering their village. However it appears that the process drove them mad with power, and they continued to drain the life-force of innocents for centuries even after their vengeance was complete.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Simone and Lena were peaceful settlers until pirates ransacked their home and killed the other settlers in horrific fashion. They asked their god for a way to avenge them, and they got it.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Fred. All his theories and guesses about who could be faking the ghost and zombie appearances on Moonscar Island, and why they'd be doing it would probably be right, if it wasn't for the fact that this film is a Deconstruction and Reconstruction of the Scooby-Doo formula by showing what happens when the usual "Scooby-Doo" Hoax gets averted.
• Yellow Eyes of Sneakiness: Simone, Lena and Jacques' eyes all turn into yellow cat's eyes when they transform.
• You Meddling Kids:
  Simone: I've had enough of that meddling dog!
  Scooby: (looks around in confusion) Dog? Where?
• Your Costume Needs Work: When the gang captures a lone zombie, they initially believe it to be an obvious fake, an unusual case of savvy for this franchise. Unfortunately for them, in this case they're Wrong Genre Savvy.

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"Scooby-Dooby-Doo!"

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