At Hotel Transylvania monsters and their families can live it up, free to be the monster they are without humans to bother them. On one special weekend, Dracula has invited some of the world’s most famous monsters – Frankenstein and his bride, the Mummy, the Invisible Man, a family of werewolves, and more – to celebrate his daughter Mavis’s 118th birthday. For Drac, catering to all of these legendary monsters is no problem – but his world could come crashing down when one ordinary guy stumbles on the hotel and takes a shine to Mavis.
Many films have tried to bring the Halloween genre into kids’ movies, but very few have gotten it right. While you want a movie that incorporates the Halloween theme in an effective and entertaining way, you don’t want anything too frightening for your little ones. There are some great family Halloween movies from the 90’s such as ‘Hocus Pocus’ and ‘Casper’, but most offerings since then tend to be too creepy or just simply no good.
Hotel Transylvania really gets the balance right. This animated feature turns the monsters into the ‘goodies’ while humans are the ones to be feared…a concept that turns out to be very funny while still having the ‘spook’ factor.
For the voices a string of much-loved comedy heavyweights have been brought in. Adam Sandler is an inspired choice as Dracula and does a fantastic job at capturing the doting dad/friendly vampire Hotel owner. Other voices include Adam Samberg, Kevin James, David Spade and Fran Drescher (remember The Nanny named Fran? Well that’s her), and they all use their comedic expertise to turn these monsters into likeable characters.
While there are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments to keep everyone entertained, there is also a touching story of a father who wants to protect his daughter. The opening of the film sees Dracula lose his wife in a fire when Mavis is a baby, and so he turns into the over-protective single dad as Mavis grows older. So along with lots of laughs for kids and adults, there is also a lot of heart in this monster movie.
Hotel Transylvania is out in cinemas October 12th. Check out the trailer below.
