You know what I miss? Monster Squad. Nightmare Before Christmas. Little Monsters. Family friendly horror-themed flicks that amuse both adults and children, and still homage creatures of the night in a way that doesn’t strip them completely of their roots.
And Hotel Transylvania? Filled that void. I can’t say that I’ve laughed this much in an animated kids flick in well… forever. Okay – Monsters Inc. was kind of funny.
Hotel Transylvania is well… a hotel. Built by Dracula (voiced by Adam Sandler) for the sole purpose of keeping monsters protected. A safe haven of the dead if you will. You see – Dracula lost his wife many, many moons ago to pitchfork-wielding blood bags – and he’s never really recovered from that. Can’t blame the guy.
So every year all the monsters gather at his hotel to celebrate his daughter Mavis’s birthday. And this year? She’s turning 118 – and ready to fly the cave much to Dracula’s dismay. After convincing her it’s a bad idea – the annual monster party commences until it is infiltrated mistakenly by a human.
And so chaos and humor ensue. You see – Dracula is a biiiiiit of a narcissist. He fears if the monsters knew about the human, the future of his hotel and his reputation would be ruined. So plan B? Dress him up like a monster until he can get rid of him (since you know, biting him isn’t an option – it seems the monsters in Hotel Transylvania all went to their own deadite version of AA). But despite his best efforts – the facade shatters, the monsters discover the truth – and even worse? His daughter Mavis falls in love with the kid. Doesn’t being 118 kinda make her a cougar?
Anyways, when you get past all the fart jokes Hotel Transylvania is a movie about a father loving his daughter and learning to let her grow into what she is meant to be. Even if it’s a creepy human lover. It’s also about not judging people by what you hear. The monsters who feared the humans for so many years were pleasantly surprised to learn maybe – they weren’t all that bad.
I don’t want to spoil much for those of you who haven’t seen it yet – but if you had kids or younger siblings I couldn’t recommend it more. Just seeing the Wolfman exhausted by his numerous litters and Frankenstein constantly pranking The Mummy kept this big little kid entertained through the whole film. Um… twice.
Trailer:
