Movie Review: Monster High: Fright On!

Monster High: Fright On!

Mattel Playground Productions, Wildbrain Entertainment, USA, 2011.

Draculaura and her friends are spending a day at mall and going to the cinema. Possible "Creepshow" reference spotted.

Dead-bored ticket seller

As the watchers of "Underworld" or "Twilight" series know the vampires and werewolves have been historical enemies and the tensions still exist. Pack of racist werewolves frowns upon that Draculaura and Clawd Wolf are dating. As Monster High is a school for all kinds of monsters, Headless Headmistress Bloodgood announces that Monster High is getting new students from vampire school and werewolf school. The idea is to demonstrate that those different groups can integrate to the school's system that supports students' uniqueness instead of dividing them to ethnic cliques.

The gang is all here.

The Fearleading team (Frankie, Draculaura, Clawdeen, Cleo and Lagoona) forms a welcoming committee. However the new students have a bad attitude and even Queen Bee Cleo fails to impress them. Also Clawdeen Wolf's little sister Howleen arrives to school as a new student and Clawdeen feels annoyed.

Picking a fight

Howleen

There can be only one Queen

As a comical interlude we see what Monster High's classes are like. At Mr. Hackington's chemistry class there is a small accident and a mini-Cthulhu appears. Coolest class ever.

Ia! Ia!

Mr. Hackington

Maybe a dance party will ease up the tensions. The party is dead at first but thanks to Abbey Bominable's no-nonsense approach all have fun. The harmony seems to be restored for a while. That's until strifemonger Administrator Van Hellscream appears.

Abbey Bominable has a straightforward style.

Van Hellscream

The werevolves start claiming territories and the vampires make zombies their servants. Old wounds are opened and even the friendship of Draculaura and Clawdeen is at risk. Fearleaders try to return peace but they get imprisoned in dungeon. It takes the unique skills of Fearleaders to get free. Also dungeon-expert Operetta helps.

Bats vs Cthulhus

Operetta

"Fright On!" has a slightly more serious tone than "New Ghoul @ School" tackling themes of racism, racial tensions and class differences. The key is finding the things that connect people instead of segregating the groups and aggravating differences. There is also bit (at least temporary) character development: Cleo realizes that she has been using Ghoulia as a servant just like the vampires did to other zombies, but in the end Cleo confesses that she values Ghoulia as a friend. The focus of the story is now in adventure, humour is not forgotten but is is not so dominant as in the web-series. It is fairly entertaining special episode in the series with some important life lessons.

Rating: Good

Voice actors: Kate Higgins, Salli Saffioti, Debi Derryberry, Laura Bailey, Audu Paden, Ogie Banks, Yuri Lowenthal, Cam Clarke, America Young, Erin Fitzgerald, Wendee Lee, Cindy Robinson, Gigi Sarroino
Directors: Victor Dal Chele, Alfred Gimeno, Audu Paden