My search for lake monsters is taking me to some strange places. One of which, somewhat disconcertingly, is the world of Scooby-Doo. I’ve had a passing acquaintance with the animated series, but I had no idea how wide the Scoobyverse was, or how many variations there are, from old-fashioned Saturday-morning cartoons to full-length live-action features. There’s no apparent end to it.
Of all the myriad ways Scooby has appeared in film and television (not to mention comic books and games), I happened across one that turned out to be relevant to my interests. Curse of the Lake Monster is one of the live-action features. It stars four obviously-not-teens playing teens, and one painful CGI attempt at a large talking dog.
The plot is straight cut-and-paste of numerous episodes before and after it. Our paranormal sleuths travel to an isolated location that turns out to have a paranormal problem. In this case it’s Daphne’s rich playboy uncle’s brand-new country club on Lake Erie, and they all need summer jobs to pay for the barn they burned down during their last adventure. Pretty Daphne, intellectual Velma, jock Fred, and not-so-bright-but-weirdly-wise dork Shaggy, and of course Scooby, plunge immediately into an all too familiar situation.
There’s a monster in the lake, though at first they don’t believe it. Lake monsters are just a way for towns to trap the tourists, says Daphne. Naturally the town of Erie Pointe has one, complete with centuries-old legend.
In this case, it’s a witch who once lived in the caves under the lake. (Yes, there are caves in Lake Erie.) When the first settlers arrived, she warned them off her land, but they ignored her. Using her witch’s staff and a set of enchanted moonstones, she created a monster to wreak her revenge.
Lake Erie has a traditional monster. It’s long, serpentine, usually dark grey, may have fins or arms, and it’s called Bessie. It was last seen in the 1990s.
That’s not what the Scooby crew find. Wanda the witch enchanted a frog into a human-sized, fanged monster with a penchant for terrorizing people who invade her territory. She was captured, tried, and burned at the stake, but her creation seems to have lived on.
The monster attacks the club on opening night. No one is harmed and no one dies, but the club is in shambles. Half the members cancel their memberships. Uncle Thorny’s latest venture is in danger of closing before it’s even really opened.
Scooby and company offer their services as “the best supernatural detectives in the Tristate area.” They’ll track down the monster and save the club. Uncle Thorny hires them on the spot.
We, and they, know what the monster looks like, and we pick up the gist of the legend: the witch’s curse and her sworn revenge. But there’s a twist. They know Wanda is long gone, but they learn that she had children who were taken in by the settlers after her death. One of her descendants must be picking up where their ancestor left off.
In fact, it’s Wanda herself in spectral form, and she’s possessed someone they know and love. Velma picked up one of the moonstones on the beach on the first day. Wanda used it as a conduit to take her over. That’s why Velma has been calling in sick or hiding in her room when things start to happen. She’s the hooded figure with the moonstone-topped staff who’s seen commanding the giant frog.
The rest of the Scooby crew track them to the caves under the lake. Wanda enchants three more frogs, for a total of four monsters. They all end up chasing Fred, Daphne, and Scooby into the labyrinth of passages beyond the cave.
Shaggy meanwhile tries to get Velma to overcome the witch’s possession. He sweet-talks her and tells her how smart and strong she is. But what brings her back (and this is me gritting my teeth at the rampant institutional sexism) is his ode to her adorable cuteness. He seals the deal with a duet of the song they sang during the production number in the middle of the film: “By the Light of the Silvery Moon.”
That’s exactly as dorky as it sounds. It works well enough to break the witch’s grip on Velma and snap the top off her staff, but Wanda almost gets the stones back and restores herself—until Scooby leaps to the rescue and smashes them all. As she flies shrieking into nothingness, she intones the classic villain’s line of the series: “I would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for you meddling kids and your rotten dog!”
And so the club is saved and our heroes (and heroines) get their standard reward, a $10,000 check. The witch is gone forever. The frogs are restored to their normal, frog-sized selves. The world is safe for another day.
Until the next episode. And the next mystery. And the next villain who also would get away with it except for those meddling kids and their blasted dog.
Personally I’d have liked to see Bessie instead of a giant frog. Even if the frog does have fangs, and even if there’s some resonance with the idea that lake monsters may be amphibians. But that’s how things roll in the Scoobyverse.
