Hotel Transylvania 2 (2015)

Recently the Syosset Public Library has hosted a movie night for kids. Due to work, my mom asked me to bring and accompany my 5-year-old brother as she couldn’t. I obliged and sat through Hotel Transylvania 2 with him. After the movie, I asked him to tell me his impressions of it and was met with “good”. In typical kid fashion, he was not able to elaborate. Unlike my brother, I have some stronger opinions pertaining to the movie. 

    I greatly enjoyed the majority of the movie. The art and animation was great. For example, the scene with the bats chasing each other in the clouds, while unrealistic, was very well done, with good motion shots and effects. You could see wisps of clouds moving. Story wise it starts off really well. For those who haven’t seen the movie, Mavis (vampire) and Johnny (human) have a child (Dennis). They raise him in Mavis’ homeplace, Hotel Transylvania, a place filled with monsters and relatively isolated from humans. 

Mavis’ dad, Drac, is surprisingly open minded at the beginning of the movie. He realizes his daughter is breaking vampire conventions by marrying a human, but he states “Human, Monster, Unicorn, as long as you are happy.” However, problems emerge when Dennis is born. While Drac is still very happy at being a grandfather, he is convinced that Dennis must be a vampire like him. As Dennis grows up Mavis and Johnny become increasingly convinced that their child is human but Drac refuses to accept this conclusion. 

In order to awaken Dennis’ vampire abilities he puts him through a variety of trials he himself went through. One of these dangerous trials was throwing him off a tall tower, where, if Dennis didn’t morph into a bat and fly, would kill him. Ultimately Dennis fails and Drac has to save him in the nick of time. 

Now, the real reason I liked this movie was because it was a conflict between traditional and modern views. Of the trials Drac makes Dennis go through, one involved a series of monsters showcasing their ferocity to awaken Dennis’ violent instincts. Frankenstein is asked to scare passersby in town. But he’s been so used to peace that he no longer remembers how. When he tries to jump scare 2 jogging women, the women are not frightened and instead recognize him and they pose for a selfie. The werewolf asked to maul a deer said “roar” instead of actually roaring. The cursed Egyptian mummy asked to summon a large, destructive sandstorm that hurt his back during the ritual. While these scenes were comical, it showed that many monsters of the same generation as Drac were no longer obsessed with the traditional, scary monster image and had integrated into pop culture. Slowly Drac realizes that Dennis didn’t HAVE to be human and accepted him regardless of race. This is an inspiring message, especially because these traditional vs modern conflicts are highly present in our society. 

However, apparently, the director of scripture decided to insert a climatic battle scene between traditional man-eating bats and humans where Dennis has to become a vampire to protect the people he loves. While I understand this choice as the target audience was younger kids who would enjoy such a thing, this turn of events leads to the last 20 minutes of the movie completely spoiling the message. While Drac has announced his change of heart, he doesn’t truly take any actions to support a human Dennis. In addition, Drac’s even more traditional human hating father is also introduced towards the end. He shows vivid disgust at hearing his great grandson is human. Before it’s shown how Drac’s father wants to deal with this issue (most likely through killing), Dennis awakens and averts that problem entirely. While Drac’s father does accept that humans have been introduced into his bloodline, he seems to accept it, partially restoring the message.

Overall, I would rate this movie 8.5/10, a relatively high score for how disappointed I was at the conclusion.