8/10
Out Scooby-Doos the Scooby-Doo movies
21 March 2014
Hired to investigate a supposedly-haunted abandoned schoolhouse, a group of paranormal investigators find the school is far more dangerous than they bargained for and must try to find the cause of the paranormal incidents to get out alive.

This turned out to be quite the effective and entertaining parody effort while falling slightly short as a true stand-alone effort. Aping the TV show to it's fullest extent, right down to the set-up of the group and their relationships to each other, the continual use of finding bad guys in masks as the prime culprit and the same goofy humor throughout, even managing to bring a dog into the fray as a partner makes this one feel like a true homage yet it still manages to go in it's own separate path as the group manages to find an actual case of demons and satanic madness in their latest assignment, which proves far too much for them to handle and causing the middle section to be enormously entertaining with a series of sequences really amping up the terror and tension throughout. The sight of seeing them succumb to the actual torments and tortures inflicted upon them by the ghastly, creepy-looking demons and ghouls makes for some additional fun than expected due to the playing off the homage angle earlier and seeing the walls drip with blood-splatter, the group finally engaging in sleazier antics than usual and the entire actuality of the demonic origins of their protagonists is just endless fun due to incorporating this into the film. That said, without all that knowledge beforehand this does tend to follow the motions in just about every one of these haunted house investigation movies with the team not completely sold on the enterprise being what they think it is, they eventually get proved wrong when it turns out to be for real and must overcome the experience for the first time. It does grow a little thin to see it resorting to these clichés to keep going, but that's the way it goes here with this type of plot. It also really easily betrays it's low-budget roots quite often with a series of lame shots of the demons or really weak-looking special effects, but the rest of the movie is so fun it really overcomes that.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, Nudity, drug use and violence-against-animals.
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