Film

Hotel Transylvania

Name: Hotel Transylvania
Genre: Animation, Comedy, Family, Fantasy
Released: 2012
Cast: Selena Gomez, Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Kevin James, Fran Drescher

Hotel Transylvania turns the classic movie monsters into overprotective parents and rebellious teens, running a five-star resort where Dracula frets over his daughter's first brush with the human world. It's fast, colourful, broadly slapstick family fare — jokes land safe rather than sharp, the animation bounces rather than dazzles, and the emotional core is simple dad-daughter anxiety dressed up in fangs and fur.

TMDb rating

7.0

If you liked this

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Shrek2001

Also flips fairy-tale monsters into sympathetic homebodies, but with sharper jokes hiding inside the kids' movie and a genuinely odd romance at its core.

But The pop-culture gags have aged unevenly, and the humour skews more cynical than Hotel Transylvania's cheerful goofiness.

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The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Young Frankenstein1974

Hotel Transylvania borrows its whole cast list — Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man — straight from the Universal monster movies this film is spoofing, decades earlier and with sharper teeth.

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ParaNorman2012

Stop-motion instead of CGI, and a lot spookier — zombies and witches sit alongside the comedy, aimed at kids who want their monsters to actually unsettle them.

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A haunted-house adventure with the same knack for making monsters sympathetic underneath the scares, and a tighter, scarier story for slightly older kids.

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Another stop-motion tale of misunderstood creatures building a strange, loving family underground, with a similarly big streak of gross-out humour for kids.

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Wreck-It Ralph2012

Same year, same spirit — a big lovable outsider trying to find where he belongs, stuffed with cameo characters and a candy-bright visual style kids devour.

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What We Do in the Shadows2014

Same premise as Dracula running a hotel full of monsters keeping up appearances — except here the monsters are flatmates failing spectacularly at ordinary domestic life.

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