Western Animation / Scooby-Doo: Camp Scare

"Here comes summer
Hazy, crazy summertime
What a bummer
Seems we got ourselves a crime."

Premiering on Warner DVD in 2010, Scooby-Doo! Camp Scare revolves around the gang becoming counselors at Camp Little Moose, a run-down summer camp that Fred remembers fondly from his childhood. When they arrive, they discover that the local campfire stories have been coming true, from the Ax-Crazy Woodsman to the screeching ghost of a lost hiker, to a monstrous fish-man in the lake. It's up to the gang to solve this mystery, but can they do it before the monsters find what they're looking for?

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This movie provides examples of:

• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: Many scenes are pretty obviously done in CGI.
• Abhorrent Admirer: The ranger investigating the destruction of Camp Little Moose flirts with Velma. She is revolted by it.
• Accidental Truth: Fred claims that Big Moose Lake is haunted to try and get them to stay at his camp's lake. Velma calls him on it, but while they're at Big Moose Lake, the Fishman shows up.
• The Ace: Luke. He is shown to be very good at swimming (as he is the only one not to wear a life preserver), is shown to be a very prominent archer, catches an enormous fish before Fred can even finish giving him instructions on how to cast, and also shows his strength in the last battle with the Woodsman by pushing a large, rusted bell into the villain, nearly knocking him off.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Fred ruffles Luke's hair after he helps defeat the Woodsman.
• Always Someone Better: An institutional example, as Camp Big Moose has a lot more accommodations and success than their neighbors.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Camp Big Moose has "cheaters, schemers, and...hot counselors!"
• Ax-Crazy: Played extremely straight with the Woodsman, who is described as violently insane and even brandishes an axe.
• Berserk Board Barricade: After his first run-in with the Woodsman, Scooby hammers a series of boards across the door. It doesn't do much good, given that Shaggy can easily open it seconds afterward.
• Big Dam Plot: The villain's plot involves dynamiting a dam to get to a Buried Treasure in a Sunken City.
• Book Ends: The movie opens with Burt telling the tale of the Woodsman to kids around the campfire, followed by his assistant scaring them while dressed up as the creature. It ends with him recapping the tale (now edited to be about Ranger Knudsen's search for the treasure) in a similar setting, with Scooby being the one to scare the kids this time.
• Breaking Old Trends: Unlike most Scooby-Doo investigations, more time is spent trying to figure out the motive than finding the perpetrator. Many investigations don't reveal the plan until after the unmasking, but in this one, they figure it out by putting all the little pieces together before the climax.
• Car Fu: Scooby uses some very cool driving skills to capture the Fishman with the Mystery Machine.
• Cherry Tapping: The Woodsman is off-balance from Luke shoving a bell into him, but he's still teetering on the windowsill. Fred pushes him out by pressing his nose like a button.
• Comically Missing the Point: Ranger Knudsen tells Velma to "just stick to looking pretty", much to her fury. Daphne's response? "He thinks you're pretty!"
• Composite Character: In-Universe; the new version of the Woodsman's backstory at the ending combines the old story with the name and motivation of one of the culprits from the mystery.
• Deadly Prank: In the Woodsman's (original) backstory, he was a counselor so nasty the campers decided to get revenge with a prank. They snuck a snake into his knapsack...which he pulled out while hiking in a dangerous place. In terror, he missed his footing and fell all the way to the bottom.
• Didn't See That Coming: Velma admits this to be the case when Deacon reveals that he's actually Babyface Boretti.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Jessica inspires a lot of this when she's around Fred.
• The Dog Was the Mastermind: One of the camp kids, Deacon, turns out to be the dangerous gangster Babyface Boretti in disguise, who was behind the whole supernatural hoax.
• Emo Teen: Trudy started out Emo, but Velma's encouragement helped bring Trudy out of her shell. Out of the four members of the gang, Velma is a natural at being a counselor.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Baby-Face Boretti has no problem with destroying a dam/lake to find some treasure, as long as nobody drowns when the resulting flood annihilates Camp Little Moose. Of course, not having to worry about multiple charges of murder (some of them child murder) just makes it easier to relax once he gets the treasure, so it may be a case of Pragmatic Villainy.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: When the Gang returns to Camp Little Moose, they discover that the Woodsman went on a rampage, but thankfully didn't discover where Burt, Luke, and Trudy were hiding. After a few moments, Velma realizes they've got a big problem.
  Velma: Hold on. If the Woodsman didn't find Burt, Luke, and Trudy, then he thinks the camp is empty.
  Scooby: So?
  Velma: If the camp is empty, then he thinks it's okay to...!
  (Cue the dam in the distance exploding, unleashing a flood on them all)
• Faint in Shock: Scooby has a close call with the Woodsman while going for firewood. When Burt comes in the door immediately afterward, he collapses into Shaggy's arms.
• Family-Unfriendly Death: The campfire story, in the beginning, has the villain fall off a cliff and smash into every rock on the way down.
• Fanservice:
  • Both Daphne and Velma are in swimwear. While Daphne in a bikini is very sexy as usual◊, Velma showing off her curves is quite a surprise for the franchise.◊
  • Jessica fits the role of Ms. Fanservice. She is extremely attractive, wears shorts, and her first appearance is in a bikini.
• Fish People: The Fish Man is called such, but he's more of a crocodile with some fins and the ability to stand up.
• Improvised Weapon: When they go after the Woodsman as he stalks Jessica, Burt has a shovel and the gang is armed with various pieces of sports equipment (a tennis racket, a bat, a hockey stick, and a gold putter).
• Insane Equals Violent: Jerry McCreedy, aka the Woodsman, is said to have been driven insane from head trauma, and he roams the woods with an axe. Of course, McCreedy was already mean before going mad, which would give him an additional reason to become violent after losing his mind.
• I Will Wait for You: While being arrested, Ranger Knudsen asks Velma to wait until he gets out of jail. Given that she didn't like him even before he was unmasked, she tells him to forget it.
• Knight of Cerebus: The monsters are some of the darkest in the Scooby franchise to date, with only the ones from Zombie Island and Mystery Incorporated arguably being worse. The Woodsman is treated like something straight out of a slasher film, the Fishman nearly drowns Daphne and Fred, and the Spectre is a borderline Eldritch Abomination. And it isn't a crook in a mask either, like the first two.
• Land, Sea, Sky: The three monsters in the movie fit this motif: the Woodsman (Land), the Fishman (Sea), and the Spectre (Sky).
• Luck-Based Search Technique: Shaggy, Scooby, and Deacon go flying headfirst into the RV everyone was seeking.
• Male Gaze: When Daphne and Velma disrobe to their swimwear, the camera takes time to pan up both their bodies.
• Meaningful Echo: When the gang first arrives, Fred does the standard "Camp Little Moose" meet-and-greet chant with Burt, and the rest of the gang is unimpressed. Toward the end, the gang, Burt, Luke, and Trudy join in the "Little Moose" chant to reaffirm their dedication to protecting the camp.
• Mirror Character: Everyone in the gang gets their own:
  • Shaggy gets Deacon, a timid Non-Action Guy who is clearly a Big Eater. Though this is disguise.
  • Velma gets Trudy, an introverted Smart Girl not interested in the wilderness.
  • Daphne gets Jessica, Ms. Fanservice whom Fred expresses attraction to, and can hold their own despite first impressions.
  • Fred gets Luke, an outspoken leader passionate about his time at camp.
• Mythology Gag: The "mistaking dynamite for candles" gag was also done in the original TV show.
• Never Recycle a Building: The town of Moose Creek was submerged for years, so it's naturally abandoned after the dam breaks. At the end of the film, Camp Little Moose and Camp Big Moose manage to turn it into a new summer camp after they join forces.
• Newspaper Dating: The decade the old town was abandoned and flooded is vague in the flashbacks. Then an old movie-theater marquee displays that the 1949 film White Heat (in a double-feature with The Public Enemy (1931)) was the last movie screened there.
• Nice, Mean, and In-Between: The three campers of Camp Little Moose: Spunky and optimistic Luke (nice), Bitch in Sheep's Clothing Deacon/Baby Face Boretti (mean) and Trudy, who starts off moody and gloomy but eventually becomes more open and nice (in-between).
• The Obi-Wannabe: Fred explicitly admits he wants to be a hero and mentor to the kids but he’s too overt about it. Plus Luke is far better at everything than him while Trudy and Deacon tend to ignore him and rarely participate.
• Our Banshees Are Louder: And they crossdress, too!
• Palate Propping: Fred tries this trope on the fish monster when it attacks the scuba-diving party, bracing its maw open with the net gun that'd proved ineffectual at restraining the threat. It sticks the Fishman's mouth open for a while, but eventually, the monster snaps the net launcher.
• Proscenium Reveal: It appears as if Shaggy and Scooby are camping when they first see them, but minutes later it’s revealed they’re really in an outdoor display at a grocery store.
• Real After All: The Stinger shows that the Specter was actually a real ghost in a surprisingly effective Jump Scare.
• Reused Character Design: The shopkeeper the gang learns about Moose Creek from looks very similar to Lester from Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders.
• Rod And Reel Repurposed: Fred and Luke snag the Fishman with their poles when he attacks Velma and Trudy.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Burt's assistant Daryl and the other counselors and students (besides the ones who arrive late) have fled the area (or at least gone camping at Big Moose) within the first ten minutes and eventually Deacon says he's had enough and is going to Camp Big Moose.
• Shout-Out:
  • During the opening credits, two characters resembling Rocky the squirrel and Bullwinkle the moose are seen sitting in a tree.
  • The Banshee in the film bears a strong resemblance to Iron Maiden mascot, Eddie the Head.
• Stay in the Kitchen: Knudsen seems to want Velma to do this, to her great annoyance. It's never made clear whether he meant it, or if he just said that to get her to stop investigating.
• Stock Slasher: The Woodsman is as tall as or taller than the cast, determined, and green-faced (presumably with decay). He rarely speaks, though he more frequently lets loose with an Evil Laugh. He stalks Camp Little Moose with an axe, though he isn't as successful as typical slashers because the movie isn't straight-up horror.
• Sunken City: The lake in Camp Big Moose has the remnants of an old town sunken.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Baby Face Boretti locks Shaggy, Scooby, Daphne, Velma, and Trudy in a jail cell. The door might've been locked, but the town had been submerged for presumably years weakening the concrete and rusting the metal bars enough that merely shaking the door aggressively causes it to break.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: While possessing some distinct characteristics, Jessica has a lot of similarities to Crystal from the last movie in being a shapely, Ambiguously Brown woman who plays a major role in the running of a local institution and who Fred fawns over to Daphne's annoyance.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The Woodsman's death at the beginning campfire story had him suffer abuse even after he logically would have died already.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Daryl goes from being Burt's goofy sidekick in the opening scene to quitting his boss and being a stricter counselor at Camp Big Moose who runs off anyone from another camp.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • Ricky LaRue the bank robber has a getaway driver as an accomplice in the flashback but he never went back for the treasure himself for some reason, unless he was Babyface Boretti.
  • The flashbacks showing the bus with Deacon, Trudy, and Luke being brought to the camp shows the silhouettes of more campers. What happened to them is unrevealed (although possibly the bus was also dropping off people at other camps).
• Who Is Driving?: During the getaway after the dam bursts, Velma notices Fred in the back with her and Daphne and asks who's driving. Scooby is! How can this be? (He drives well, at that.)

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