Zoinks! Spencer Parsons’ Saturday Morning Mystery winkingly makes the opening-credits claim that it is “a real story based on actual televised events.” That is its cheeky way of hinting at — if not quite acknowledging, for legal reasons — that, yes, the movie is perfectly aware its characters and setup resemble TV’s still-chugging Scooby-Doo. That is Saturday Morning Mystery’s point, its selling point and, ultimately, its point of no return.
Unknowns Adam Tate, Josephine Decker, Jonny Mars and Ashley Rae Spillers fill the role archetypes of, respectively, Fred, Daphne, Shaggy and Velma. (Hamlet, their nonspeaking Great Dane, plays himself.) The paranormal-hunting foursome is hired to investigate a mansion that once housed a private school with religion-based curriculum; rumors of satanic sacrifice, an open gate to hell and the occasional meddling kid have plagued the site ever since. With Hamlet in tow and on a leash, the group members unload their van, set up their equipment and steel themselves for an unpredictable night.
Much of what happens in those dark hours would cause William Hanna and Joseph Barbera to turn beet-red, if they were still alive to see it. In other words, the film’s R rating is entirely warranted.
People drawn to Saturday Morning Mystery strictly because of the Scooby-Doo “connection” are bound to be disappointed. Parsons’ work is not a parody of the beloved cartoon; Warner Bros.’ sanctioned pair of live-action comedies better adhere to that description. This is also more or less humorless, despite a sunny, cheerful title that conjures loving images of sugary cereal and hours of entertainment while the parentals slept in. Saturday Morning Mystery is a mumblecore treatment of in-vogue supernatural horror dripping with Gen X nostalgia; therefore, it is less an actual story and more a concept — one that still requires some fleshing out. At least it is interesting in its shortcomings — no easy task, that. —Rod Lott