Hotel Transylvania 2

Story

In the first Hotel Transylvania movie, a young human called Jonathan (Andy Samberg) stays at a hotel for monsters, which is owned by Dracula (Adam Sandler). Jonathan falls in love with Dracula’s daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez). In Hotel Transylvania 2, Mavis and Jonathan get married and have a beautiful and apparently human baby boy, whom they name Dennis (Asher Blikoff).

As Dennis grows and approaches his fifth birthday, Mavis becomes concerned about Dennis being human. Meanwhile Grandpa Drac becomes more and more anxious about Dennis not showing any signs of being a vampire. Usually vampire children get their fangs and can fly by the age of five years.

Mavis believes that a hotel full of monsters isn’t a safe place for her human son to grow up in and she wants to move. In preparation for the move, Mavis and Jonathan travel to California to visit Jonathan’s parents and check out the neighbourhood, while young Dennis is left in the care of Grandpa Drac and his four friends – Frank/Frankenstein’s monster (Kevin James), Wayne/The Wolfman (Steve Buscemi), Murray/The Mummy (Keegan-Michael Key) and Griffin/The Invisible Man (David Spade).

Drac believes that with the right motivation and teaching, Dennis will grow his fangs. With Mavis out of the way, Drac and his pals take Dennis on a road trip to Monster Summer Camp where Drac himself learned to be a monster when he was a young boy. Unfortunately for Drac, Mavis finds out and rescues her son, taking him back to Hotel Transylvania and telling her father that she’ll be leaving with Dennis after his fifth birthday.

On the day of Dennis’ birthday, all the relatives arrive at the hotel to celebrate. Dracula’s father Vlad (Mel Brooks) really hates humans. He reacts badly to the discovery that his great-grandson and in-laws are human, and this has unexpected results.

Themes

The supernatural; vampires; discrimination; family relationships

Violence

Hotel Transylvania 2 has animated slapstick violence and accidental harm throughout. Some scenes feature menace, threats of more serious violence and acts of violence towards children. For example:

A character talks about a vampire eating a human.
A one-year-old human child is given a miniature guillotine as a birthday present. The child’s mother takes the guillotine and says that she’s going to make it childproof. Another woman says, ‘So you cut your finger off – it’s all part of the fun’.
A pack of werewolf cubs eat lollies and become hyperactive, destroying a bouncy castle. A four-year old human child playing with the cubs is knocked to the ground and knocks a tooth out.
Talking about a five-year-old boy becoming a vampire, an adult vampire says, ‘The kid will be guzzling goat blood in no time’.
Dennis asks his grandfather how he lost his mother. Drac replies, ‘She was killed by angry humans’.
In one scene a monster doing yoga is stretched on a torture rack. The monster screams out with a look of ecstasy on his face.
Drac throws his grandson off a tower to encourage him to fly. When the young boy doesn’t fly his grandfather jumps off the tower and flies down, catching the young boy just before he hits the ground. The tower collapses and falls onto the camp below, causing a monster’s head to catch on fire. The monster runs through the camp, setting it alight and destroying it.
A scary vampire bat attacks a young boy and werewolf girl, and they scream in fear. The bat grabs the children by their clothes and lifts them up into the air. The girl bites the bat’s hand, and it throws her through the air. She tumbles across the ground until she comes to rest motionless on the ground. She is whimpering like an injured dog.
Towards the end of the movie, a young boy transforms into a vampire. The young boy is attacked by a large bat, which is blown off its feet by the force of the boy’s roar. This causes a battle that involves an army of bats against monsters, including vampires. Tennis balls and rocks are used as weapons, and there is also biting and punching. A bat tries to impale a human man through the back with a spear.

Sexual references

Hotel Transylvania 2 has some sexual references. For example:

A male mummy says to a monster friend, ‘How hot is my date?’ The friend replies, ‘Wow, so hot!’
A young vampire woman tells her father that she is pregnant and shows her father her swollen stomach.
A man says to his wife, ‘Are we ever going to be alone again? I need to feel loved too’.
Dracula asks his five-year-old grandson, ‘Do you miss Winnie, that cub who tries to lick you all the time?’ The young boy replies, ‘Yeah, but we’re just friends’. Dracula says, ‘No, no, no you’re a Dracula – you can’t be just friends with a cute hairy number like Winnie’.
A female werewolf is shown as always pregnant, with an extended stomach and references to the number of wolf cubs she has given birth to.

Alcohol, drugs and other substances

Hotel Transylvania 2 shows some use of substances. For example:

Characters drink wine socially.
A woman drinks dozens of different flavoured Slurpies.

Nudity and sexual activity

After being married, a couple go to kiss but are stopped by the bride’s father, who indicates that they should have only a small kiss. They give each other a quick peck on the lips.

One scene shows the comically animated naked torso of Frankenstein’s monster.
Dracula dresses in drag, wearing a woman’s wig and a nurse’s dress, to get into a delivery room. He has comically large breasts and bottom. A monster sprays mouth freshener in his mouth and puckers up his lips ready to kiss him, but Dracula bares his fangs and the monster backs off.
In a couple of scenes an octopus-like monster smothers a man’s face with kisses, leaving the man’s face smeared with red lipstick.

Product placement

The following products are displayed or used in Hotel Transylvania 2: Facebook, YouTube and mobile phones.

Coarse language

Hotel Transylvania 2 has some coarse language and name-calling. There is also some toilet humour involving urination and an incident with a damaged toilet.

Ideas to discuss with your children

Hotel Transylvania 2 is an animated comedy targeting older children and teenagers. The movie is well suited to this audience, with lots of humour about parenting styles as well as plenty of slapstick comedy.

But the movie also has several scenes and characters that are likely to scare children under eight years, including scenes that show scary monsters and harm to children. Therefore we don’t recommend this movie for children under eight years, and we recommend parental guidance for slightly older children.

The main message from Hotel Transylvania 2 is that you can’t make someone into something they’re not. The movie also includes positive messages about families, friendships, diversity and acceptance.