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Hotel Transylvania | 2012 | PG | - 2.4.2
Count Dracula (voiced by Adam Sandler) has opened a fine five-stake rated hotel in his hometown of Transylvania. One of its guests is a backpacking human boy (Andy Samberg) who stumbles upon the hotel and falls in love with Dracula's daughter (Selena Gomez) at her 118th birthday party. Also with the voices of Steve Buscemi, Kevin James, Fran Drescher, Jon Lovitz, Cee Lo Green, Molly Shannon and David Spade. Directed by Genndy Tartakovsky. [1:31]
SEX/NUDITY 2 - A human boy and a female vampire kiss briefly three times in different scenes. A human boy falls in love at first sight with a young-looking 118-year-old female vampire; when they meet, they both become wide-eyed, with sparks and stars appearing in their eyes as they stare at each other. Two tiny fleas are scarcely visible on a sheet when a vampire enters the room and apologizes for interrupting their honeymoon, suggesting sex that we cannot see; later we see the tiny squeaking fleas on a parquet floor with a translation caption stating they should have stayed elsewhere on their honeymoon. Five zombie construction workers look at a bluish zombie woman trudging past and chatter, and growl and whistle in appreciation of her "good looks."
► We hear that a vampire's wife, the love of his life, died and he will never recover from his sadness. We hear that everyone has someone that will be the love of his or her life (a "zing"), but only once. A vampire girl receives a storybook that her mom left to be opened on her 118th birthday; it states that about everybody has one love.
► A werewolf wife with a very large belly and wearing a tent dress appears pregnant at a hotel party; she and her husband have over a dozen were-pups with them and one person says to a friend that the Werewolves had too many children.
► Alone in his bathroom, Invisible Man powders his buttocks and shakes it in a mirror for laughs. A teen vampire girl wears a short dress that reveals her thighs and legs in black tights. An overweight Frankenstein's monster wears only swim trunks in a pool or a towel in a sauna in several scenes, revealing his bare chest. We see a male vampire wearing only a towel around his waist but his chest has no nipples. An overweight mummy wears a towel around his waist (he is already covered in bandages). A skeleton wearing a shower cap is seen showering and screams in a female voice at intruders (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details); her skeleton husband appears and asks the intruders what is wrong with them as they leave.
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VIOLENCE/GORE 4 - Throughout the film, classic monsters from Universal Pictures' black-and-white films are depicted as colorful, friendly, odd-looking freaks: We see smiling cartoon versions of Frankenstein's monster and his wife, Dracula, the Wolf Man and his wife and pups, the Invisible Man, an overweight Mummy, a hunchback chef, Yetis, talking shrunken heads, a human fly, gremlins, skeletons, zombies, bug-eyed flying brains, a big yellow-green blob person and a blue many-headed hydra; all of these creatures enjoy swimming, playing volleyball, and walking and chatting in a hotel lobby.
► In flashbacks, 19th century farmers with torches and pitchforks yell "Monsters!" and jab their pitchforks and fiery sticks toward the audience; a castle burns to the ground in the background and we see the hand and forearm of a woman drop limp onto a stone floor (we hear that the woman died in the fire).
► A bat flies toward the audience (in 3D), back into the screen and into a castle window, where it becomes a shadow of a man with huge claws and approaches a crib; a facial close-up shows him blue-eyed and pink cheeked, smiling at his baby daughter. A male vampire in close-up becomes angry several times, snarling and roaring into the audience as his face and eyes turn red; his teen daughter does the same to him in one scene and in several other scenes, the male vampire's eyes turn red as he attempts to hypnotize others and stop their actions with a special power when he points at them.
► Bats with smiles, wide eyes and large fangs appear to fly toward the audience several times. A large swarm of griffins with pointed tales, wings and large teeth chase a small hunchback several times and fly toward the audience. A swarm of round tables covered with white tablecloths develops large eyes and smiles and fly toward the audience, with people riding on top of them; one tablecloth develops hands and appears to pray during a mock battle of tables. Frankenstein's monster and his wife mail themselves to a hotel, come out of the boxes and their bodies come apart and go back together in several scenes, without any blood shown. A human male steps on a big-eyed brain creature accidentally and it squeaks at him. A short, wrinkled blue witch pulls tiny skulls from a Bingo number cage and they whisper numbers to her that she then announces for the game.
► Several monsters drive a hearse through the woods where many sheep block the road; a werewolf gets out of the hearse and climbs back in while burping bits of wool into the air (it is implied that he ate the whole herd off screen), he gets out again to track the scent of a human and calls werewolf pups from the woods to help (two of the pups sniff his behind).
► A vampire changes into a bat and chases a plane as it flies away and the vampire becomes sunburned and smoky with scorched wings full of holes; the bat smashes into the cockpit windshield and hypnotizes the pilot into turning the plane around -- the bat seems to talk through the pilot, whose eyes become red under hypnosis and at home the bat changes back to humanoid form and is seen sunburned and scorched, but heals up immediately. A vampire girl changes into a bat and flies to a human village, changes back into a girl again and meets a group of people with torches and pitchforks that poke at her and threaten to steal candy; they accidentally set one another on fire, the girl changes into a bat and flies away and when the masks fall from the people's faces we see that they are bluish-faced zombie hotel bellhops in disguise, who are unhurt by fire (some heads fall off, but the zombies pick them up and replace them).
► A talking suit of armor calls an army of talking suits of armor that carry swords and they all chase a human male who escapes them; a chef captures the human, ties him up and places him over a spit in a fireplace to cook, the armor-people knock the chef unconscious and one of them takes the chef's forefinger and sticks it up the chef's nose.
► Cartoon corpses with crossed eyes rise from their graves at night and trudge to a monsters' hotel while white ghosts with large black eyes and craggy mouths float around between them. A male vampire disguises a human as a Frankenstein's monster so the human does not scare other monsters at the party. Outside a hotel is a cave that looks like a stone face.
► In a hotel kitchen, a large mouse argues in squeaks with chattering spiders and a hunchbacked chef while the chef beats his large monster sous chef with frying pans (he is not hurt), then sticks deviled lizard claws into the assistant's ears. A large skeleton yells at a human to get away from a smaller skeleton (the first skeleton's wife). Many monsters enter a hotel kitchen and scream when they see a human and the human leaves. Frankenstein's monster climbs a balloon figure of himself and roars loudly. We hear that one of Frankenstein's monster's hands once strangled a pig.
► A vampire jumps into a pool as it begins to get crowded and pulls the plug to end the swimming session he feels is too rambunctious and he moves a yellow-green blob creature to the side in such a way to catch the last swimmer, who was about to hit his head on the empty pool floor.
► We see a dragon in the basement that breathes large flames that heat the hotel sauna and in the sauna several monsters sweat heavily; a large yellow-green blob scoops part of his gel body onto the hot rocks in the sauna to produce more steam when a human male falls through the roof and lands in the lap of one of the male vampires. At the hotel, a plumber has a toilet plunger and we hear that a toilet is plugged. A hotel maid vacuums up a hairball while a mummy and Frankenstein's monster growl hello to each other several times. Two people look for a room in a hotel and open a door where a skeleton wearing a shower cap is showering and screams in a female voice.
► A teen vampire girl accepts a plate of pancakes from her father and they are covered with wriggling red worms; they are "worm cakes," but we do not see her eat them. A vampire says he no longer drinks blood, but uses blood-substitutes, much like egg substitutes ("Bloodbeaters"). At a dinner and a buffet table, we see that the food consists of living beetles, cockroaches and various slimy concoctions; scream cheese on a bagel rises up with a ghost face and screams in a squeak.
► A vampire tells a human male that he will suck the human's blood if he does not leave and the human looks sad and leaves after telling a vampire girl that he does not like her, making her cry. A monster tells another monster that humans want to cut open monster heads, fill them with candy, and then steal the candy and bite the monsters' toes. A monster tells a vampire girl not to let humans scoop out her brains. A vampire says that he and his long-fanged architect built a hotel to provide a place where monsters can be themselves and be safe from murderous humans. In several scenes, a vampire calls his daughter "My little voodoo doll" and "Blood orange." A male vampire listens to an iPod and screams, "It's stealing my soul!"
► The bottom half of Frankenstein's monster detaches and bends over, flatulates behind a mummy and a roomful of people stare at the mummy as if he flatulated; he sputters that he did not. A character makes reference to a plugged toilet because a monster filled it while having a stomachache (defecation implied). A father changes his infant's diaper and reacts to the smell as he tossed it, rolled up, into a coffin-shaped canister (we do not see the baby's bottom or the contents of the diaper). A dark fountain in shadows resembles a man urinating onto the ground, but when a torch passes by, we see that it is only a pillar in the middle of the fountain.
► At a hotel pool, a large fly with huge eyes leads pool exercises and sneezes and spits on his hands; the monsters in the pool do the same, he tells them not to do so, that he was only spitting and an onlooker says he was vomiting, but he was spitting. A trapdoor opens in a hotel room and we see smoke and flames shoot up before it shuts again; a man sees the fire and screams.
LANGUAGE 2 - 6 mild scatological terms, 6 mild anatomical terms, 1 mild obscenity, name-calling (idiot, weird, Grandpa, Mr. Tight Organ [musical organ], Mr. Breaks A Lot, Captain Control, Your Lordship, nerds, fat, fool, hunchback, racist, viscous, weird, nasty, awful, horrible), stereotypical references to parents, teens, children, Italians, Jews, elderly people, multiracial people, racial stereotypes, persecuted groups, control freaks, small towns, horror movie fans, 3 religious exclamations.
SUBSTANCE USE - One bar scene in a hotel features bubbling beakers and glass tubes of colored electricity lined up along a back-bar instead of drinks, and zombie waiters serve bottles and glasses of what appear to be alcoholic drinks on trays to various monsters at a large party.
DISCUSSION TOPICS - Parenting, responsibility, promises, death, loss, fantasy and special powers, monsters, mixed marriages, people who are different, racism, fear, trust, honesty.
MESSAGE - Before accusing others of prejudices, check your own.
CAVEATS
Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.
We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.
Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.
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