"Saturday Morning Massacre / Mystery" - - Remarkably Bad

*You'll notice this review does not have any pictures. This was for the sake of speed. This movie is terrible and if I can prevent one person from watching this, then this blog will have served it's purpose.*

Depending on who you ask, when you ask them, and if they even know what you are talking about, this movie is either called "Saturday Morning Massacre" or "Saturday Morning Mystery." The DVD itself reads "Saturday Morning Massacre" but the title card in the movie uses the "Mystery" variation. The Wikipedia page states that "Saturday Morning Massacre" was the original release title in 2012 but it has since been changed to "Saturday Morning Mystery." Which doesn't make since, unless the Redbox I rented this movie from is also a time machine.

I think the real "mystery" here is how long it will take to "massacre" four of the most irritating characters ever to grace a horror movie. Oh, sure, most horror movies have one total asshole character who keeps mucking things up for the others, only to be treated with the most gruesome death of all. That's almost a horror convention at the point.

But to have all four of your characters be face-punchingly annoying makes the movie a chore to sit through. They're supposed to be based on the cast of "Scooby-Doo," they even have a dog! Get it! A dog! And one guy is a druggie! Like Shaggy! Get it?! Get it?!

There's even a sequence with the dog chasing a kid and the gang is chasing their dog as they run from room to room down a hallway. Just like the old show! GET IT?!

This movie tries so hard to fit in so many "Scooby" gags I can't imagine what would be worse: Sitting next to the director as he elbows me in the side saying "Get it?! Isn't that clever?" or sitting in a dark theater with a crowd of hipsters clapping outrageously to this terrible film while trying not to spill their PBRs all over their ironic beards.

This movie sucked.

This movie sucked in a way few films suck. First off, like I already said but which bears repeating: the characters are awful. "Shaggy" (I'm not even going to bother looking up the characters' names)  keeps jumping out and scaring people. Then he says "Just kidding, folks!" and then he does it again. Is that really someone you would repeatedly invite to go into haunted house with?

The Velma character is the smug one. Daphne is the hippy dippy one who wants to "feel the house" whatever that means. It could mean something spiritual, but while she is saying it, she is literally running her hands up and down the walls of the house. At that point I didn't know she was high, but really at that point I didn't know anything about anyone. These characters were so underdeveloped that the entire drug sequence was hard to discern from their real personalities. Maybe Velma likes to walk around in circles when she's stressed? Maybe Fred always lays on top of dogs? We don't know because the movie 1) Assumes we watched Scooby Doo and 2) Assumes that since we watched Scooby Doo we would automatically be invested in his stock characters.

These cardboard cut-outs continue to do stupid stuff like breaking out of a room they just barricaded themselves into, continually running into a house after they just spent the last scene trying to escape, oh, and when a cop shows up, Shaggy needs to hide a bunch of hits of LSD.

So he hides them in a communal water jug.

Let's pause here for a second and ask: When is the last time you drank out of the same water jug as three other people? Not pour into a cup, I mean straight up lips-on-the-Thermos-I-drink-then-you-drink. I mean, some people might think that's unsanitary, well, let's ask the "Daphne" character her opinion after she gets done giving the "Fred" character a blow job. 

But see, the plot requires all the characters to be on acid and the only reason they would do that if they all drank out of the same water jug. It's those ridiculous choices that make this movie an utter failure.

Just like in "Scooby Doo," there is no such things as ghosts. But this house is really haunted! But it's not! Because at the last half hour we find out that all the spooky stuff they (and by extension, we) were seeing was cause by drugs! Whew! No ghosts!

Nope, just crazy inbred hillbillies.

Crazy inbred hillbillies who come out of nowhere even though the whole first part of the movie has shadows that disappear when played back on videotape. And a guy acting possessed (but that guy was the Shaggy asshole so "Just Kidding!"). But if it was ALL drugs then why did Fred basically see the plot of the movie when he stared at the creepy skull in the corner? Was the premonition not really supernatural but just a lot of lucky guesses?

While we're on the topic of the whole "no ghosts" thing: Our first introduction to the gang is them investigating a haunted house but finding out the ghost is fake but *gasp* they uncover a child porn ring! "This ain't your daddy's Scooby Doo!" the film seems to shout. Then the cops show up and they're like "You just blew our sting! We had all this evidence they were making child porn and now they'll be out of jail by lunch time!"

Seriously? Ugh, I mean I get the joke. In this world the "meddling kids" end up meddling with the law. But how much evidence do you need to gather when the cop himself says "We have video of them leading kids in." What type of cop says "Hmm those kids will probably be used for child porn but . . .let's bust them in a week or two. More kids means a better case!" Also, when the Scooby gang busts finds the kids they are locked in cages in a room full of video cameras. I doubt any one will be getting out by noon.

Just like the title, this movie couldn't decide what it was. Horror? Comedy? Horror/Comedy? Parody? Ironic Portrayal of 80's Icons? Love Letter to Cartoons? No matter what it tried to be, "Saturday Morning Massacre / Mystery" failed. It wasn't scary, it wasn't funny, and it's not nearly as clever as it thinks it is. It's a formulaic slasher film with bad characterization and a flimsy plot.

Unsurprisingly, this movie has got a lot of good reviews. "Ain't It Cool News" said it was one of the best movies they'd seen this year. If I was a more naïve lad I would assume that has to be either a typo or a flat out lie, but while watching this movie I could tell it would play well to the "Get it?!" hipster crowd. Trust me, avoid this movie, even if you are a hipster. The money you spend on this movie can buy you a nice t-shirt at a thrift store.