Scooby-Doo is one of those characters that seems to be synonymous with childhood. After all, the lovable Great Dane has been a part of the television landscape since 1969, so it’s not surprising that multiple generations of fans would know and adore him, the gang, and their antics.
What’s especially enjoyable about the various forms of Scooby-Doo media is how they cleverly build in references to various horror movies of the past, all while maintaining a child-like atmosphere that is the franchise’s trademark. The eagle-eyed viewer can see in even the wackiest of the animated movies the homages and references to the classic horror films of the past.
10 Vincent Price in 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo
Vincent Price was one of the most iconic actors to have starred in horror films. Part of it was his voice, which was strangely nasal and yet absolutely charismatic. It was also his mode of performance, which somehow managed to be both sly and campy at the same time.
He makes his appearance as a thinly-disguised version of himself, under the name of Vincent Van Ghoul, and he’s undoubtedly one of the best things about this particular iteration of the franchise.
9 Frankenstein’s Monster and His Wife in The Reluctant Werewolf
The 1980s was a bit of a strange decade for the franchise. In many of the films released in this period, it would be revealed that the monsters were, in fact, very real (fortunately, they weren’t very scary). In Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf, Shaggy is turned (against his will) into a werewolf and forced to participate in a race with various other monsters.
These include, of course, the iconic Frankenstein’s monster and his wife, who were themselves two of the most famous monsters of classic Hollywood horror.
8 Dracula in The Reluctant Werewolf
In addition to the numerous other monsters that appear in The Reluctant Werewolf, Dracula also makes an appearance. In fact, he’s the one responsible for turning Shaggy into a werewolf, and he serves as the film’s main antagonist.
While he’s a bit prone to slapstick and has a truly ridiculous accent, he’s clearly an homage to the various actors that portrayed this character in numerous films of the past (including the bits of grey hair at his temples).
7 Zombie Island
In the Scooby-Doo fandom, Zombie Island occupies a special place. It’s one of those rare Scooby-Doo films that actually manages to be more than a little scary (it does have both zombies and cat creatures, after all).
The fact that it involves an island with a long history of zombie infestation is clearly a call-back to some of the earliest zombie films, many of which involved outsiders coming to various Caribbean islands and discovering that they were inhabited by zombies.
6 Frankenstein’s Monster and His Daughter in Ghoul School
Another of the wackier 1980s Scooby-Doo films is Ghoul School, which shows Scooby, Shaggy, and Scrappy taking up positions as teachers at the titular school, where the children of various horror movie monsters go to be educated (Scooby and Shaggy are, of course, not at all happy about this).
Among them are, of course, Frankenstein’s Monster and his daughter. Whereas before these monsters were seen as icons of terror and fear, now they’ve become kind and doting fathers to their rather unruly children.
5 The Shining in Mystery Incorporated
Mystery Incorporated is another iteration of the Scooby-Doo franchise that manages to be both entertaining and frightening and equal measure. Bringing in elements of H.P. Lovecraft, the series shows the gang confronting some truly cosmic horrors as it progresses from the first into the second season.
It also includes an episode in which they go to an isolated hotel, where they are tormented with terrifying visions. It’s a clear homage to Stanley Kubrick’s horror classic The Shining.
4 The Mummy in Where’s My Mummy?
The Mummy is, of course, one of the all-time classics of horror cinema, an expression of a terrifying and ancient evil come to torment the present.
Unsurprisingly, there have been several iterations of this creature in the Scooby-Doo universe, including in both the original cartoon Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? and in the more recent movie Where’s My Mummy. In both cases, the cartoon encourages the viewer to see this as a call-back to the horror films of yesterday.
3 Teen Slashers in Camp Scare
The 1980s was something of a golden age for the teenage slasher, in which a group of teens is terrorized (and killed) in the woods by some sort of madman. In one of the more recent Scooby-Doo films, the gang travels to Camp Little Moose, a summer camp that Fred went to as a child.
While there, they are terrorized by an axe-wielding madman known as the Woodsman. While he’s ultimately unmasked as just another cynical criminal, his frightening antics are a clear reference to those earlier horror films.
2 The Wolfman in Ghoul School
In addition to all of the other horror film characters that appear in Ghoul School, the audience also gets to meet the daughter of the Wolfman.
Like her father, her visual design clearly owes a great deal to the Universal monsters that were so popular in the 1930s and 1940s, even though she clearly isn’t quite as scary as her father was in the original films (even if she does tend to howl and show other very wolf-like characteristics).
1 House of Wax in Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?
In one of the better episodes of the original series, the gang stumbles into a mystery that seems to have a lot in common with the classic horror film The House of Wax. In the episode, a wax monster is terrifying a local TV station.
The prime suspect is in fact a man whose house is very much reminiscent of the House of Wax in the titular film, and one can’t help but wonder whether some of those wax creations are in fact his unfortunate victims.
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