You could be forgiven for mistaking “Monster Family” as a part of the “Hotel Transylvania” movie universe, but I don’t think that’s unintentional. “Monster Family” bases itself on a lot of other better films for what amounts to such a flat affair. Despite its lively animation, everything about “Monster Family” is a messy, convoluted, and bizarre affair that never makes much sense, despite its attempts to bring itself down to Earth as a tale about family unity. Holger Tappe delivers what is just a sloppy, derivative mash-up of “Hotel Transylvania,” “The Incredibles” and “The Munsters.” And it’s never as fun as either of the aforementioned, even at its best.
In an attempt to reconnect as a family, mom Fay Wishbone plans a fun party for the upcoming festivities and accidentally contacts Dracula. Infatuated by her, Dracula enlists an evil witch to curses Emma and her family, turning them all into Monsters. As Dracula tracks them down to capture them, they try to figure out how to revert back to humans, and keep Emma from submitting to her vampiric cravings.
“Monster Family” is all over the place delivering on a narrative that takes so many segways that it’s irritating. There’s daughter Fay’s romance with the mummy Imhotep who just appears out of random to romance Fay who’s become a mummy, and now seeks to take her with him. He is literally written off the movie without a rhyme or reason all the while the Wishbones has to learn how to work together as a monster unit, as Dracula sits on the sidelines anxiously trying to do… something. Why would Dracula turn the entire family in to various monsters with their own powers?
Why not just turn Emma in to a vampire and be done with it? Why didn’t he just bite her and take her instead of putting on such a big show? And did the Witch intend to give the family super powers or was it a fluke? As for Dracula, his sub-plot makes absolutely no sense, but it fits right in to everything else in “Monster Family.” First Dracula wants to romance Emma, then he wants to curse the entire family, then he wants to create a new Ice Age with a magical snowflake and destroy the world—for some reason. He also wants Emma to become a vampire to become his wife, but when he has her in the second half, he inexplicably prevents her from transforming. And do the writers know who Dracula is?
He’s not just a magician, he’s also a massively powerful ampire. Picking it apart really does “Monster Family” no favors. Despite its great voice cast, it’s a colossal waste of time not even fit for background noise.