Monster Family review: The Wishbone family are far from happy after being turned into monsters in this new animated feature, a production from Sky Cinema Original Films.
Monster Family review by Luke Ryan Baldock.
Monster Family review
With Netflix hitting and missing all over the place with their original content, and Amazon also giving us some memorable films, now Sky Cinema want in on the action. Over the next year, they’ll be releasing a number of films simultaneously in cinemas and on the Sky Cinema channels. First up is Monster Family, a joyous looking animated film surrounding all your popular monsters such as a mummy, werewolf, vampire, and Frankenstein’s monster. We’re about to experience the third in the Hotel Transylvania films, and the original title for this flick was ‘Happy Family’, as it’s adapted from the German novel of the same name. This all suggests a heavy reliance on recognisable characters to sell the product. That’s fair enough, but does Sky Cinema have anything to offer? Well, not really.
Monster Family is confusingly bad at points and seems cobbled together in the unkindest of ways. Of course, there’s nothing hateful or damaging here, with a generic love and family story played out by paper-thin characters, but you can get very similar films of much higher quality elsewhere. The Wishbone family finds themselves transformed into the monsters they have dressed up as after an evil witch sent by Dracula attempts to change mother Emma (Emily Watson) into a vampire to become the prince of darkness’ betrothed. The curse only works because the family are all unhappy, and so they must work together to break the curse and become a family again.
A simple enough tale that writers Catharina Junk and David Safier (adapting his own novel) seem unconfident with. The amount of bizarre plot holes and segways simply has the mind working overtime in a never-ending loop of questions and frustration. Starting with the film’s funniest set piece, in which the mascot trio of bats (thankfully never as annoying as Minions) play the organ, while one looks nervous and excited about playing the single note they have been entrusted with. However, soon Jason Isaac’s Dracula arrives and problems soon set in. He dives into a rendition of Tom Jones’ ‘It’s Not Unusual’, and then receives a call from Emma Wishbone. Why has Emma called Dracula? Because she’s trying to find fake teeth for a vampire costume and has gotten the wrong number. There’s no setup for this gag/plot device, as to how the numbers have become confused, and when it transpires that Emma doesn’t even have a fancy dress party to go to (she isn’t invited to one until later), you realise that this script probably didn’t go through many drafts.
Monster Family review
Outside of the script, we get stilted and clunky animation that lacks originality or its own distinguished look. A few characters stand out, but otherwise, it all feels very cheap. Worst of all is the syncing of dialogue with characters lip movements. It feels as though this was actually animated for a foreign language, with the English language tracks slapped on top. Rarely do voices feel as though they are coming from the characters themselves. Add to this the strange choice of choosing very British voices for an American family and you find yourself asking ‘why?’
With little in the way of actual humour and refusal to follow their own logic, Monster Family results in a feature that is insulting to its target demographic. It employs fart gags that have to go visual (with a lovely green gas), your usual child stereotypes created by much older screenwriters, and the mother being too easily susceptible to Dracula’s advances. Although all attempts at creating original content are admirable, and Sky’s upcoming Hurricane Heist is a surefire winner, Monster Family is a poor distraction until Hotel Transylvania 3. Certainly suited for direct to TV consumption, so you can fast forward through the painful parts.
Monster Family review by Luke Ryan Baldock, February 2018.
Monster Family is released in UK cinemas on Friday 2nd March 2018.
