Movie Review: Hotel Transylvania (2012)

Well, a very good friend of mine, the promising musician Darin Mitev, spent his entire week trying to talk me into watching Hotel Transylvania. And to be honest, I was a bit hesitant about it because at the time it seemed to me that it was the cartoon version of something between Vampires Suck (2010) and Dracula (1992). But here’s the trick - it only seemed like that.

Actually, I’m confident to say that this is the best animated film I’ve seen in maybe half a year (if not even longer).

In the beginning I purposefully used the word hilarious because how else could I describe a movie which presents Dracula as a control-freak hotel manager whose greater fear is the human kind? I bet that wouldn’t have been like that if he had seen Twilight (2008) or read any of the vampire saga book series which have been flooding the book stores lately. 

Anyway, so what is Hotel Transylvania? I cannot be 100% positive, but I’m almost sure it’s actually a very sweet romantic story (and no, again, it’s nothing like Twilight). It tells the story of poor hurt lost-his-wife Dracula who’s a caring father and who’s created this hotel to protect monsters of all kinds and species from the evil humans whose only purpose in life is to kill them (the monsters). But of course at some point things get out of control when (imagine that) a human breaks in their safe castle, but instead of carrying a big torch his only weapon is his smelly clothing.

Don’t worry, I have spoilt nothing for you - you can see all that in the trailer. However, what cannot be spotted so easily is how deep the characters are made. The fact that we have a bunch of the most terrifying monsters of all times, and we laugh at them should make it abvious that the creaters of the film have done their job, and they’ve done it well.

Ah, how I wish I could tell you what happens in the end… But you’ll have to find that out for yourselves. So forget everything you’ve seen or read about vampires, zombies, witches, werewolves, Frankenstein, etc. and expect nothing but to be mesmerized and to laugh your head off.