

Although real monsters had previously appeared in most of the 1980s Scooby-Doo series and features, this continuity was ignored with the characters said to be encountering real monsters for the first time. This was heavily promoted before its release including a tagline used during commercials stating, "This time, the monsters are real." This theme would be followed up in several subsequent direct-to-video animated films released in the late-1990s and early-2000s.

It was the first movie to feature real monsters instead of traditional 'bad guys' in masks. It was released on VHS on September 22, 1998. Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island is the first in a series of direct-to-video films based upon Hanna-Barbera's Scooby-Doo Saturday morning cartoons.
