It’s Scooby-Doo with an 18 certificate: Why the Scream franchise owes a major debt to the classic cartoon

When is a compliment not a compliment? When you say a TV show or a film has "gone a bit Scooby-Doo". This is meant to suggest it's formulaic and faintly embarrassing, which makes what I’m about to write uncomfortable, but I believe Scooby-Doo kids grow up to be Scream-loving adults. Not ironically. Not guiltily. But properly, and with pride.

This sounds insulting to both parties, I know. Scooby-Doo! Scream! One features a talking dog; the other a creepy guy who only talks on landlines. But they share a connection that runs deep (deeper than just Matthew Lillard starring as both Stu Macher and Shaggy). Because Scooby-Doo – especially the original 1969 Where Are You! version, before the franchise started shaking things up with guest stars and noisy puppy nephews – is a masterclass in horror-lite and mystery.

Yes, it has its repeated idiosyncrasies. They split up. Velma loses her glasses at a pivotal moment. Scooby and Shaggy are chased by the bad guy. Sometimes they dress as French waiters for reasons no one ever questions (how come they can always find a stainless-steel cloche in a crisis?). But beneath that, something subtly educational is going on.

Because Scooby-Doo is actually teaching you things. One: everyone's suspicious. Two: the monster is never really a monster. Three: fear can be punctured with a joke about a vertiginous stack of burgers. Four: if you pay attention, things make sense. And five – crucially – nothing beats the moment when the mask comes off.

Put it like that and you can suddenly see the through-line to Scream. Ghostface is just the Spooky Space Kook who’s done a film studies degree and found a knife block.

That mask removal is the pivotal thing. The moment when chaos becomes order. When the person who was helpful, or at least seemed benign, turns out to be the problem. Benevolence suddenly becoming malevolence. It’s startling but also satisfying. And it carries a reassuring message: that terror, however primal, can be tackled by people with questioning minds.

It works on several levels at once – emotionally, cerebrally, dramatically – and if you’ve been hot-wired for that pleasure early, you’re determined to seek it out again. Some of us went from Scooby-Doo to Nancy Drew to Agatha Christie. Others took a more macabre turn along the shelves at Oldham Library via Goosebumps and Stephen King. But the principle's the same: cleverness and tenacity beating chaos. The monster loses. Order reasserts itself. Everyone exhales and, if they're lucky, gets to grab a milkshake at the diner.

The difference, as we get older, is the intensity. Scooby-Doo is where the needle starts to creep upwards. Then the psychological layers thicken, the blades get sharper. And by the time you reach Scream, you're being rewarded for years of studying. And at this stage, knowing the rules isn't merely smart; it might help you survive.

Neve Campbell's Sidney Prescott remains alive because she questions what's expected of her. Jamie Kennedy's Randy Meeks stays in the land of the living (at least for a while) because he’s devoured the handbook. Luckily for her, Randy's niece Mindy inherits a similar hunger for knowledge. It’s the same logic as Fred shoving Scooby and Shaggy out as bait – risky, yes, but rooted in an understanding of how events usually pan out. In Scream, awareness is a prized commodity.

What’s clever is that, for all the sly winks, Scream still plays fair as a whodunnit. Ghostface isn't an implacable force in a boiler suit like Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees. He’s human. Fallible. Which means, in theory, he could be tempted by the promise of notoriety, retribution, or a tasty baguette being offered up by French waiting staff. The deviation is that, instead of being hoisted aloft in a net trap, the solution usually involves bullets and a frenzy of stabbing. It’s Scooby-Doo with an 18 certificate.

Hollywood has made a packet out of this particular trick: frightening us into thinking. I Know What You Did Last Summer, Urban Legend, Happy Death Day – all variations on the same idea. And while critics readily acknowledge Scream’s cleverness, not many tip their hat to the gang in the floral-decorated van who got us primed for action.

Which is strange, really. Because decades before Ghostface dialled his first number, Scooby-Doo was demonstrating to us that the scariest things often turn out to be someone in a costume, and that if you keep your wits about you, don’t assume the obvious and pursue the clues, you'll probably manage to puzzle it out in the end. And if not – well, at least you’ll get a major buzz from the unmasking.

Read more:

• Scream's Neve Campbell addresses return to horror franchise following controversy
• Why isn't Neve Campbell in Scream 6? Fate of Sidney Prescott

Scream 7 is released in cinemas on Friday 27 February in the UK.

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