Product Details

• Actors: Scott Innes, Frank Welker, Mary Kay Bergman, B.J. Ward (II), Jane Wiedlin
• Directors: Jim Stenstrum
• Format: Animated, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: Unrated
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Turner Home Ent
• VHS Release Date: March 6, 2001
• Run Time: 70 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (98 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00000JQTX
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #11,948 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Scooby-Doo is making a big comeback with several helpings on TV and new videos. The series' writers are smart enough to mildly spoof themselves, and this movie opens with Scooby, Shaggy, Daphne, Frank, and Velma solving a crime that ends with the now-classic Scooby line, "It's... [insert some administrative minion/angry neighbor/disgruntled relative], only to have the criminal bleat, "And I would've gotten away with it too, if it hadn't been for you kids!" There they meet one of Velma's idols, fright-writer Ben Ravencroft (voiced by an effective Tim Curry). Smitten Velma and gang accept his invitation to his New England hometown festival. When one of Ravencroft's ancestors suddenly swoops down from the supernatural heavens, the gang's on alert. This movie is appropriate for viewers 4 and up (although some of the animated frights may haunt sensitive viewers). It's also for their parents who may have been fans in the series' initial run. The cool and fun soundtrack's catchy tunes include a song performed by the Hex Girls, one of whom is none other than former Go-Go Jane Weidlin. If the theme song's got a country beat, that's because it's sung by Mr. Achy Breaky himself, Billy Ray Cyrus. --N.F. Mendoza

Product Description
From a mysterious museum to a haunted New England village, join Scooby-Doo and the Gang as they set out on their most spellbinding adventure ever! When world-famous horror writer Ben Ravencroft tracks down the Mystery Inc. team to figure out why a ghost has decided to haunt his hometown's popular Autumn Harvest festival, suspicious spirits are only the beginning! Before long, Scooby, Shaggy, Velma, Daphne and Fred find themselves delving dangerously deep into Ravencroft's family secrets. Was his beloved ancestor Sarah a kindhearted healer, or an evil witch whose legacy now threatens the town...and maybe even the world? With out-of-this-world excitement, spine-tingling thrills and supernatural fun, follow Scooby, Shaggy and the rest of the gang through every hilariously hair-raising twist of their all-new animated feature to find out!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Scooby meets - REAL MONSTERS!, January 17, 2008

By	K. D. Payne "Ravenskya the Princess of Horror" (Chattanooga) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Scooby-Doo! And the Witch's Ghost (DVD)

My son picked this movie out at Blockbuster... the first time we watched it, he was 3 and absolutely obsessed with Scooby and the gang. He loved the movie but was a bit frightened by it.

We let our children watch Scooby because, no matter how scary the monsters look... they are always just a man in a mask. The show used to point out how if you just use your brain you can figure out mysteries and that there are no real monsters. That whole theory was blown out of the water by this Scooby (and Zombie Island as well).

First off, the artwork is just a little different, the colors are bolder and the creatures are drawn scarier... much scarier than... say... the Miner 49er. Then as a parent who has probably already suffered through both the best and worst of Scooby (the Reluctant Werewolf being among the worst) you will have to suffer through a bunch of Wiccan girls in a rock band called the "Hex Girls" who pontificate on how wonderful the Wiccan religion is. I don't particularly care either way about the religion of the Hex Girls, and although I have nothing against the Wiccan beliefs... I just don't see where ANY religion belongs in Scooby Doo. Just about the point where you as a parent feel your breakfast about to make a reappearance over the constant yapping about religion... the Hex Girls sing... they aren't Bad... they just aren't good.

One of the better points of the movie is that Tim Curry makes a VO appearance... and is fabulous as always... Then we get to the point where the gang unmasks the bad guy... and you think to yourself... Okay FINALLY, this is over and I can get my TV back... but you are wrong. Instead of ending it where they should have, a REAL GHOST OF A WITCH comes back and terrorizes Scooby and the gang. I sat there in a fury after this was over. Who the heck wrote this? I thought... they missed the WHOLE POINT of Scooby... which is that the monsters are never real.

If I had been watching this with an 11 year old I probably wouldn't have had an issue with this... but the 3-6 group, who loves Scooby with all of their hearts, and drags their Scooby Stuffed animal around with them... should be able to count on Scooby and Gang always unmasking the baddie and it being the Gardener or the Butler, or the Old man from scene 1... there should NEVER be a real monster in Scooby.. NEVER.

4 stars on the Artwork
2 stars on the sound track
3 stars on the rest of the film

PS- If you are a religious fanatic of the Christian persuasion you will probably flip your lid at the Wiccan bits.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nice "Scooby Doo" sequel, August 19, 2001

By A Customer

"Scooby Doo and the Witch's Ghost" is better than the TV series, with a fun soundtrack, kooky characters, and the same, though slightly different formula.

Scooby and the gang catches two archaelogists and coincidentally meet Ben Ravencroft, a horror novelist, a la Stephen King, who is one of Velma's famous horror novelists. Ben invites the gang over to spend a weekend with him at his hometown in Salem, Massachusetts. There, they meet a local group, the shapely trio Hex Girls, who insert two cool new music numbers in the movie. They are connected with the mystery about Sarah Ravencroft, Ben's descendant, who he claims that her name is wrongly accused of witchcraft, that she was a Wiccan healer, leading to funny and unpredictable results.

"The Witch's Ghost" is considerably a little more darker and scarier than it's 1998 predessor "Scooby Doo on Zombie Island," and contains the same formulaic plot that comes with the 1970s series, though it's different, and is a must have for any Scooby-Doo collector.

The voices for the characters considerably match the ones to the '70s show, though they could have used Scott Innes as Scooby only (he's going to be the voice of the animated Scooby in the real-live movie with Sarah Michelle Gellar "Buffy" and her fiance, Freddie Prinze Jr., as Daphne and Freddy).

But Scott Innes does a terrific job of doing both roles. Tim Curry does a teriffic job as Ben Ravencroft, while Frank Welker more or less fits the voice for Freddy and Mary Kay Bergman (died last year, due to suicide) as Daphne and B.J. Ward fit the role as Velma perfectly.

All in all, a pretty good Scooby Doo movie, and worth a look.

17 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Scooby Doo - updated but still the same fun stuff, March 29, 2000

By	happydogpotatohead "happydogpotatohead" (New Orleans, LA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

Scooby and the Gang are updated a bit in this one; Fred and Daphne's relationship is not as stereotypical as before, the bellbottoms and ascots are gone, and as other reviewers note, the video makes gentle fun of the whole Scooby-Doo genre. But otherwise, I find that this is classic Scooby-Doo. I didn't find this video to be excessively violent or too scary for kids, especially considering that a lot of kids' animation such as Dragonball Z and Pokemon is a lot more violent and scary than this. I was pleasantly surprised at the positive, though somewhat inaccurate, depiction of Wicca; for example, one need not be an hereditary witch to be Wiccan. However, the overall positive view of Wicca far outweighs the occasional goof on the writers' part. I note that some parents were disturbed by the fact that the movie even mentioned Wicca or witchcraft, which is sad, because it shows we still have a long way to go before true tolerance of non-Christian religion happens in American society. It's sad to think that there are still grown adults who haven't learned the lesson of tolerance that an animated dog already knows. Other than the fact that Tim Curry makes a great villain (like we didn't already know that!) and the fact that some of the monsters are "real," the remainder of the movie is very much like your typical Scooby-Doo episode, with Shaggy and Scooby goofing around, Velma figuring things out, Fred being the action guy and Daphne pretty much standing around being The Cute Girl. The animation is very fluid and fun to watch, and the supernatural scenes were spooky but not excessively frightening, especially by comparison to the other animated stuff that's out there that's allegedly for "kids." Scooby-Doo and the Gang are still among the most popular cartoon characters ever, and this video, in spite of the undeservedly negative reviews elsewhere, will please any Scooby fan of any age.