Looking Back on the Hotel Transylvania Franchise

Hotel Transylvania turns ten years old this year. It has become a staple for the Halloween season offering up a family-friendly approach to classic horror monsters. The movies focus on Dracula (Adam Sandler) who runs a hotel for monsters out of the eyes of the human world. This is to protect his daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) after the death of his wife. But when a human named Johnny (Andy Samberg) accidentally stumbles on the hotel, Mavis and Johnny fall in love much to Dracula’s chagrin. From there, the franchise expands to focus on their family and the lives of their friends. Directed by animation legend Genndy Tartakovsky, the movie was such a success that it spun off three sequels, a television series, and three short films.

As the final installment of the franchise came out earlier this year, I thought it would be a good time to look back at the last decade of these films. I’m not going to go into the television series or shorts as I haven’t seen them. Instead, I want to focus on the main franchise.

To get a general note out of the way, these movies will not be to everyone’s tastes. It is very much a family movie. While there are jokes put in for adults, it tailors to the target audience to be more kid-friendly. As animation is my favorite medium to watch, I’m used to a lot of the ups and downs when it comes to movies like these. But I absolutely understand if adults don’t get into this franchise because it is not made for them.

The other general note is that Wayne and Wanda, who are the Wolfman and his wife, are the best characters. They are solid from start to finish and I adore them through all four movies. 10 out of 10 rating for those two.

Let’s get into these.

Hotel Transylvania (2012)

This may be no surprise to anyone, but the first Hotel Transylvania is hands down the best in the franchise. Not just because it’s the original, but because it’s actually a great film with tight writing and fantastic character work, really thriving in the world it creates.

While it does still have trappings of animated films of this era such as the obligatory dance number, Hotel Transylvania is a heartfelt movie that knows how to balance chaos with subtle, beautiful moments. The pacing of this movie is incredible. Yes, there are plenty of fast pace scenes giving it a high-energy sensation. But it knows when to slow down to really let characters breathe.

The biggest scene that comes to mind is Dracula telling Johnny about how his wife died. They change the animation style to become more of a storybook-like quality as Johnny remembers learning about the legend of Lady Lubov who fell in love with a count before tragedy struck them. The music falls away as Dracula explains the truth that it was humans that killed her. Adam Sandler seriously gives a wonderful vocal performance here with heartbreak and resonance in his every word. It’s also a moment for Johnny to show his selflessness allowing him and Dracula to bond more. Hotel Transylvania has many moments like this letting the characters be themselves to drive the story.

Because the strength of this movie is the characters. The plot is actually pretty straightforward with the narrative of an overprotective father looking out for his daughter when she gets a love interest. It’s just with monsters. Each person has their own unique silhouette and walk cycle. No two people move the exact same way which makes it visually pleasing to look at. This is important later as the third installment practically threw all of this out the window. Their friendships really carry the franchise all the way through the end.

And it’s the community that is built here. Despite being a fantasy world, there is so much thought that goes into interpersonal relationships. There is love in this story whether it’s friendship, romance, or parental. Mavis calls Frankenstein “Uncle Frank” because he is that relation to her. Not through blood but found family. Dracula created the hotel out of the grief of losing his wife. What flourished was a large found family who protect each other.

The resolution is smart too which does allow for this world to grow. After sending Johnny away, Dracula and his friends are forced to go after him. They must enter the human world and face their prejudices against humans. They hid away for so long that the world changed without them. Dracula realizes that a new beginning is possible for him, his daughter, and his friends in a different world by opening himself up to change.

On its own, Hotel Transylvania is an instant Halloween classic. While it’s certainly not for everyone, there are plenty of reasons why it has stuck around for a decade and spun off a franchise.

Hotel Transylvania 2 (2015)

While personally, I’m not the biggest fan of this movie, I can’t deny that it is a solid sequel to the first.

Years later, Johnny and Mavis married and have a son named Dennis which makes Dracula a grandfather. But when it looks like Dennis didn’t get any vampire powers, Dracula panics and takes Dennis on a road trip with Drac’s friends to bring out the monster in him. But things get tense with Dracula’s father, Vlad, shows up with his hatred for humans putting Johnny, Dennis, and Johnny’s family at risk.

I do appreciate how this movie continues with what made the first film so memorable which is the characters. Watching Dracula and his friends visit their childhood hangouts only to find they’ve completely changed is so relatable. They face getting older and mourning over the good old days.

This is definitely the strongest movie for both Johnny and Mavis together too as they visit her in-laws. The scene is such a great commentary as Johnny’s parents are like, “We’re cool with Mavis. We have one monster friend. We’re not those kinds of people.” Despite Johnny trying to keep a secret for Drac, his focus is on Mavis and supports her when she’s angry at her father. Plus, Mavis’ pure joy at experiencing California for the first time is absolutely infectious.

Really my biggest issue with the film was Vlad coming in so late. When you have Mel Brooks playing such a great character, it’s a shame he’s saved for the final act. He didn’t need to be there the entire film, but I would have liked him to at least be a threat starting in act II. Because he’s very much the foil for Dracula in this film as they’re both coming to terms with the changing world. Dracula spent the movie trying to hold onto his glory days which in turn hurt his family. Vlad is still in that old mindset which leaves him completely isolated from the rest of the world. This clash does lead to an emotional meeting of the minds as Drac faces off against his father’s forces.

Also, Dennis and Winnie’s friendship is precious.

Hotel Transylvania 2 took everything that made the first movie great and expanded on it. It does take a big step down in terms of animation quality and how characters move. Those walk cycles are starting to slip away. While the characters are still unique in personality, you can see them losing that piece that makes them so as the side characters start to blend together in personality outside of the main cast. The beautiful pacing of the first movie is starting to slip away too, opening the door for more chaotic situations.

But it’s nothing compared to the third movie which almost killed the series for me.

Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation (2018)

Summer Vacation is easily the worst of the franchise from start to finish. Which is really a bummer because the premise and ideas of the movie are really interesting.

Dracula is starting to feel alone as all of his friends and daughter are married. Mavis and Johnny decide to book him a trip on a cruise for everyone in the hotel. But it turns out that this cruise is run by Ericka (Kathryn Hahn), the great-granddaughter of Van Helsing (Jim Gaffigan). To lure Dracula into a trap to kill him, Ericka pretends to have a crush on Drac. But over the course of the movie, she starts to fall in love with the vampire which puts her at odds with Van Helsing.

This is a very good premise for a kids’ monster movie. It expands the lore by adding in the Van Helsing family. It gives Dracula a story outside of his over-protective nature when it comes to Mavis and Dennis. This should be a slam-dunk story for the sequel.

My goodness do they fail completely in execution. Gone are the unique movements. Everything is muddled and blends together. There is no pacing for this film. It’s high-energy chaos from start to finish with absolutely no time to let the characters breathe. The only exception to this is Wayne and Wanda who drop all their kids at daycare and get to be on their own for the first time in the franchise. It’s hilarious watching them have some downtime. And even they get sidelined for a big chunk of the film!

What carried the first two movies was how unique the ensemble is. They each have their own stories and lives, their interpersonal relationships with each other. All of this is completely lost in Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation.

This does the most disservice to Ericka by having her blend in completely with the other characters. There’s nothing that makes her stand out movement-wise as she melts into the rest of the chaos. Her story and motivations are strong, but she gets blended in with the rest of the group which makes her pretty forgettable on her first outing. Van Helsing is at least memorable in his design having kept himself alive for hundreds of years by turning himself into a steampunk-inspired robot with his head stuck on top.

And I am going to spoil the ending because for the life of me, I do not even begin to understand this choice.

Van Helsing summons a Kraken to kill all the monsters by drowning them in the ocean. He does this by mind-controlling it from a DJ stand. It kicks off a dance-off. This did not surprise me, because movies like these have obligatory dance numbers. I was expecting something like this to happen. This isn’t the issue.

The bonkers thing is Dracula and Johnny come up with a plan to beat the evil music with the purest, catchiest, most chill song in the world. The song they beat Van Helsing and the Kraken with is the freaking “Macarena.” Out of all the songs in the entire history of the world, I cannot fathom why it is this song. They even start to joke about how bad it is as Vlad, who is redeemed now, says it’s lame. But even he gets in on the dance number. Like is this supposed to be ironic that it’s this song? Does Los del Rio and the Bayside Boys have blackmail on the executives at Sony for it to be this song? It’s not funny and even if it’s supposed to be irony, it falls flat. Plus, the scene drags on so freaking long.

The “Macarena” is also super dated even before the first Hotel Transylvania came out. But maybe I’m missing something because as critic Doug Walker pointed out, this clip has almost 300 million views on YouTube. I just cannot fathom how and why this is.

Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation is by far the worth film in the franchise. It’s a shame that this was also Adam Sandler’s last outing as Dracula, because it’s such a low point. The fourth and final film almost followed in this one’s footsteps, but it did one thing to set it apart.

The fourth film got back to basics for the franchise.

Hotel Transylvania: Transformania (2022)

Hotel Transylvania: Transformania almost fell into the pit as the third film. That opening twenty minutes continues everything wrong with Summer Vacation. I almost shut off the movie because I was not going to go through that again. But as a complete surprise, Transformania gets stronger towards the middle to finish strong. It never comes close to the heights of the first film, but the climax is so satisfying that it’s actually one of my favorite moments in the entire franchise.

Dracula, now married to Ericka, is going to retire and leave his hotel to Mavis and Johnny. Being the control freak he is, he doesn’t trust Johnny to handle the responsibilities. Thus, he makes up a lie to Johnny telling him that only monsters can run the hotel. Johnny goes to Van Helsing (who is good now???) who has a machine that can turn humans into monsters and vice versa. Hijinks ensue as Johnny becomes a monster and Dracula with all of his friends becomes human. The only way to reverse this is to find a magic crystal in South America. So, Johnny and Dracula head out in their new bodies for a buddy road trip.

To get the biggest criticism out of the way, the biggest flaw of this film is the actual setup of the premise. Dracula having this issue with Johnny is them retreading old stories which make it boring. This was the plot of the first movie. This has been touched upon again in the first two sequels. Why are we still on this character motivation other than the fact it’s the inciting incident? Paired with the hyperactive animation that never takes a moment to breathe, that opening act is tough to get through, because we’ve seen it all before. It’s not new.

Thankfully, the movie starts coming together in the second act. It’s actually really fun seeing the human counterparts of Dracula and his friends. Frankenstein is obsessed with his looks which is hilarious against the backdrop of his monstrous wife finding him hideous. Also, it feels like going back to the basics that the first film excelled at. As humans, the monster characters change how they move because they lose their unique silhouettes and get new designs. Outside of Dracula, who they could have really pushed his design more, it does freshen up the visual storytelling of the movie.

Where Summer Vacation absolutely failed Ericka, we get to see in Transformania why she’s a fantastic character and why her relationship with Dracula works. She loves Dracula, flaws and all, regardless if he’s a vampire or a human. Her resourcefulness as a monster hunter showcases her skills with her airship and fighting abilities. My favorite part, though, is watching Ericka work as a team with Mavis. Honestly, their entire friendship saved the movie for me. There is no stepmother-stepdaughter conflict. That’s such an easy trope to add unnecessary drama. Instead, Mavis and Ericka clearly love and respect each other. They’re more friends and peers than parent and daughter because Mavis is far older than Ericka. These two women carry a chunk of the movie on their backs and support each other as they search for their husbands.

The climax is the best part of the movie. It is absolutely a callback to everything that made the first movie great. Each character gets their own moment to shine. It’s a creative use of each of their bodies as they all fight to help Mavis save Johnny. Mostly, it showcases the love and community that Dracula built ever since he first opened his hotel. While getting there is rough, it is absolutely a wonderful high point to send off this franchise.

Despite its highs and lows, the Hotel Transylvania franchise isn’t going away anytime soon. I would absolutely recommend the first movie at least. It has a creative spin on introducing a new, younger generation to classic horror monsters in a fun way. When it comes to the later movies, your mileage may vary. Still, give it a try with an open mind. Maybe it’ll be right for you.