Movie Review: Monster High: Frights, Camera, Action!

Monster High: Frights, Camera, Action!

Mattel Entertainment, Playground Productions, USA, 2014.

Romantic drama movie about Vampire Queen starring Veronica van Vamp is running in boovie theaters. Draculaura is annoyed by the inaccuracies of the story and makes no effort hiding her displeasement. Hauntlywood got it all wrong! There hasn't been a real Vampire Queen for 400 years. Lord Stoker (!) has been trying to find the new Queen using magic jewel Vampire's Heart. But as he is the temporary leader he has little motivation to find the real Queen so that's where the bottleneck lies. The Vamp-bassadors give one week to find the Queen or else.

Draculaura is annoyed

Lord Stoker

Stoker plans to find a weak vampire that he can control. Dracula's daughter Draculaura doesn't even have vampire powers yet so she is the perfect candidate. Also the Heart is missing so Stoker can use fake jewel to carry out his plot. Draculaura, Clawdeen, Cleo, Robecca travel to Transylvania to prepare for coronation. Clawd has to spend the time without Draculaura so he stays home showing a sad face. Living voodoo doll Hoodude travels to Transylvania as a stowaway offering comic relief. But why do not also Lagoona, Frankie, Ghoulia and Abbey travel there? They stay behind working for school project and offer only back up support when needed. 

Clawd's sadface

It is cool in Castle Dracool

Hoodude

It is understandable that the makers wanted to put new doll characters to spotlight. Abbey and Ghoulia had been used many times as Deusas Ex Machina. Abbey's powerful freezing skills were comparable to Iceman's of the X-Men and Ghoulia's hacking skills had saved the ghoul friends several times (later they are useful also here) and especially Abbey was becoming overly powerful character. Also Lagoona's swimming skills had been useful more than once. Although Frankie Stein has not always been the main character of the stories she has been the main protagonist since beginning and often the world of Monster High has been introduced from her viewpoint. Her electric powers and detachable hand had often been useful savers of the day. So this time they stay on the players' bench and have their own mini-story.

Back up team

So for the remaining characters the problem solving methods are less obvious and make the plot development slightly less predictable although the end results are quite obvious. Clawdeen and Cleo have generally been strong willed characters but without major supernatural powers. Clawdeen perfected her artistic skills in "Scaris: City of Frights" but her strongest monster skill is having a strong sense of smell. "Being a diva is like Cleo's super power" says Draculaura. Cleo is the kind of person who can say "Don't you know who I am" and it has actually an effect. Robecca has appeared often having variable importance foor the stories but her background has remained a mystery and her story gets some new information here preparing the way for the sequel "Freaky Fusion." Draculaura's vampire skills have been never been strong so it was about time to develop her character. 

Gory Fangtell

Another notable character development is that since "Scaris" Toralei is becoming a minor antagonist and more like a comic annoyance. She still has bad attitude but her former function as Draculaura's minor antagonist is largely transferred to Gory Fangtell, who first appeared in "Fright On!" where she was a mean character. Being a background character since that she behaved well, until her mean streak returned in "13 Wishes." Clawdeen's angsty little sister Howleen has grown stronger after events of "13 Wishes" and now she can stand her ground against rivals such as Toralei.

The point is that by now the characters had established themselves, the Monster High world had become larger and the film makers could play with the regular cast of characters (Draculaura, Frankie, Clawdeen, Cleo, Lagoona, Ghoulia and Abbey or Robecca) while introducing new characters and using them in either larger or smaller roles. That's why I'm not happy about some aspects about the 2016 reboot movie "Welcome to Monster High." But we'll return to that later when we reach that episode.

Howleen has more guts now

But back to the plot. Stoker has underestimated Draculaura and her friends. They find out that the Heart is a fake. Stoker's niece and Draculaura's childhood friend Elissabat went missing for some time ago and she knows something about the jewel. So the team travels to Londoom and New Goreleans to find clues. Stoker sends his hunchbacked assistant Ygor to spy on them. Clawdeen's sister script writer Clawdia Wolf joins the team and later also documentary maker Honey Swamp and make-up artist Viperine Gorgon (Deuce's cousin). Everywhere they go they find out that Draculaura's least favourite actress Veronica van Vamp has visited there. Final answers will be found in  Hauntlywood and Draculaura learns that you can't judge a book by the cover.

Honey Swamp and Clawdia Wolf

Viperine Gorgon

Elissabat

This is Draculaura's movie so there is a lot of girly giggling. Take it or leave it. Other than that it is about as good and enjoyable as the Monster High movies get. There are a lot of movie themed puns and the opening titles spoof known hit movies. As a side plot the school is divided to Team Alucard and Team Edweird based on their favourite actors (resembling the Twilight fans debating about Edward vs. Jacob). Tarantino is funnily spoofed in the form of famous and hyperenergetic movie director Scareantino. The story has light joking references to the classic vampire stories that partially inspired the franchise.

Scareantino

Gossip column: notice sulking Heath (back row) as Abbey has a date with a famous actor

There are again three web animation episodes included.

Crime Scream Investigation
Secret admirer sends Cleo a flower. Jealous Deuce hunts the culprit but the truth is weirder than expected.

Games Ghouls Play
Catgirls Meowlady and Purrsephone chase two mice who look like Stuart Little.

Monster-Morphoseas
Lagoona is suddenly acting weird. I see what allegory they did there.

Rating: Good

Voice actors: Kate Higgins, Salli Saffioti, Debi Derryberry, Marcus Griffin, Jonquil Goode, Karen Strassman, Audu Paden, Evan Smith, Laura Bailey, Cam Clarke, America Young, James Horan, Julie Maddalena, Yeni Alvarez, Erin Fitzgerald, Cindy Robinson, Mark Mercado
Directors: William Lau, Sylvain Blais