SMAC!: Shelly Edition

Hey guys, it's SMAC time again. However, this month we're paying tribute to our favorite person! Enjoy my friend Rio's post below. My post will be on Coyote Rose's Blog. 

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Hi my name is Andres Rio and I am very pleased to be writing in for Lils today. As some of you may know from my previous posts, I have participated in a certain notorious blog-ring called SMAC, aka the Shitty Movie Awareness Club. Watching and making fun of ridiculously bad movie is always a great time BUT this time it gets even more entertaining. We, the bloggers participating, decided to dedicate this month to our favorite cat-loving, funny word using, and overall "aw shucks" nice gal blogger Shelly from Shelly Talks Too Much. And so, for the month of August, the SMAC is renamed as the Shelly Movie Awareness Club. Happy birthday Shel and I hope you don't read this while eating/drinking because I wouldn't want you to spill anything on your computer. 

The task at hand was relatively simple, choose a film that a) was crappy and b) had something that reminded you of Shelly. Choosing a movie, personally, had never been easier. I had to, I just had to do my movie review on the one and only Scooby-Doo. Remember this?

This movie is almost a decade old. That's what makes it scary.

If you have never had the pleasure of chatting with Shelly, then you miss out on the fact that she utilizes the word "jeepers" in a way that neither ironic nor sarcastic. She genuinely uses that word to express surprise or shock. My initial reaction to finding this out was: 


"hahahah you're funny...wait, seriously? ...That's awesome". 


It is both cute and hilarious, which is a powerful one-two punch to get new readers (like me) to subscribe to her blog. So I instantly knew, in my heart, that Velma's "Jinkies!" was  the soul mate of Shelly's "Jeepers!", where two smart gals solved mysteries - one with monsters and the other with lazy cats. 


The 2002 film was the first in a series of 3 (and equally shitty) movies. In the beginning of the movie, the Mystery Gang breaks up due to group resentments and disputes. Freddy, played by Freddie Prinze Jr. no less, keeps being a douche and taking all the credit for solving the mystery when it was Velma who practically comes up with every answer. Daphne is tired of being used as pretty monster bait, while Shaggy and Scooby are clueless as usual. Two years later, they are all reunited by some "mysterious" invitations to a theme park, not-so-subtly called, Spooky Island. 


Before I watched this train wreck, I was expecting it not to be scary (because old school Scooby Doo was never scary) but rather hilarious. Oh no. Nope, see this movie's problem is that it solely relied on my nostalgic "oh my god remember Saturday morning cartoons?!?" feelings. Can't you see that there's a CGI produced dog named Scooby-Doo? A dude who went without shaving for a few days for Shaggy? That should be enough for you Rio. You don't really want (or need) an interesting story or some convincing acting really. Cue 86 minutes of me lying on the couch, mind barely conscious, watching the sheer corniness that was the Mystery Gang. The real mystery here was how many brain cells were dead after watching it a second time, as if I had doubted how bad it really was. Spoiler Alert: very very bad.


Now I understand that this was meant to be an all around entertaining film for the whole family and I shouldn't be all "I expected it to rock my world", but seriously people there are some standards in the movie business. Corny humor only works it you are doing it in conjunction with other types of humor. Yes, the Gang are all set in their stereotypes and yes they all have catch phrases but c'mon I am asking for some fresh material here. Okay, so Daphne learns martial arts and she has that whole fight sequence with the masked wrestler Zarkos. That was pretty cool, and I'll admit to that but the rest of the group....eh not so much.


After this trip down memory lane full of puns, "ZOINKS!", and "Jinkies!", I reminded myself that there is a reason why revamps, remakes, revisions all tend to be pretty crappy - you already have a set bar for your past. You remember your favorite movies, cartoons, and music from your childhood in a certain way and when there is an attempt to make something related to it, it can't just be okay. It has to exceed your expectations and present something new that you may not had thought of when you were younger. Otherwise, it's just the same creepy old dude in the mask yet again.