Renfield (2023) - Movie Review

I reckon we’re in somewhat safe hands here because, no matter how this turns out, there’s little chance of this being the worst Dracula fanfic I’ve reviewed on here. We also have director Chris McKay, who has a healthy pedigree for legitimising the fanfic mentality in mainstream storytelling, from his ambitious work on Robot Chicken to the IP free-for-all of The LEGO Batman Movie (before Warner Bros. went way the hell too far with that idea for films like Space Jam: A New Legacy), and of course, Nic Cage as Dracula. Honestly, I could have just left it at “Nic Cage as Dracula” and that would’ve been enough to sell why this deserves to be watched… but that would still be leaving out a lot of the surprising delights of this feature.

Hotel Transylvania: Transformania (2022) - Movie Review

After the third film managed to bring everything full circle, I was quite certain that that would be the end of the Hotel Transylvania movies. And I don’t say that out of some sense of relief or anything like that; I’ve been a fan of this series since the first film, and beyond their fantastic and consistent animation style, I think they do well with their re-examination of the old-school Universal monsters and what it means to be Othered. As such, when this for-realsies finale snuck its way onto Amazon Prime all the way back in January of this year, I was a bit taken aback but willing to give it an honest shot. And what I got was… well, it’s still fun, but for the supposed finale, it’s also unequivocally the most lightweight of all these films.

Little Foot (2020) - Movie Review

Well, after years of subjecting myself to all manner of bad animated movies for kids, I think I’ve found the absolute nadir. The certified, inarguable, objective worst of the lot. So let’s get right into it.

Hotel Transylvania 2 (2015) - Movie Review

If you spent any amount of time watching Cartoon Network during its heyday, or even grew up on it like I did, then you owe a lot to one Genndy Tartakovsky. The man’s work on shows like Dexter’s Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls, Samurai Jack and the Star Wars: Clone Wars animated mini-series has gone on to make him one of the most vibrant creative minds that Hanna-Barbera has ever been associated with… yes, seriously. As such, the next big step in terms of flexing animated muscle is going on to do feature films, and so he was brought on to direct 2012’s Hotel Transylvania. That is, he was brought on as the sixth reported director of the film. Usually a pretty bad sign, especially for a first-time film director, but he nevertheless gave it his all and made the film his own. The result was a surprisingly fun and not-surprisingly well animated family film; sure, it had its annoying/stupid moments but the good points far outweighed the bad. Since it made over four times its budget at the box office, it of course got a sequel. Let’s hope that this isn’t another sequel made for its own sake, because I want to maintain my respect for Genndy as best I can.