HAUNTED HOTEL is an animated comedy with a deep love for horror staples and absurdist gags that proves to be as sweet as it is silly.
“This place only works if the living people make a living.”
Animation has a surprising relationship with the horror genre where these types of scary stories are a rarity outside of anime. The majority of animated horror series either skew too young to be truly scary or they use horror as an aggressive punchline and they’re comedy first, horror second. Even the latter of these are fewer and far between, as if it’s been universally decided that there are diminishing returns on this front. Animated horror comedies like Golan the Insatiable, Lucy, Daughter of the Devil, Ugly Americans and J.J. Villard’s Fairy Tales have been fine, but nothing revelatory. What this means is that there’s still room for the definitive animated horror comedy series and for something to become the leading authority in this field.
Fortunately, Haunted Hotel seeks to be for horror what Rick and Morty or Solar Opposites are for science fiction. It’s a hilarious and ambitious evolution of the horror genre that doesn’t just breathe fresh life into a stagnant corpse, but it turns that corpse into a lively, brain-eating dynamo that runs laps around its peers. Haunted Hotel has the potential to be Netflix’s next animated comedy hit and the scariest thing about it is just how good it is.
Haunted Hotel, first and foremost, is a very funny series that’s one of Netflix’s strongest original comedies. There’s also heart at the center of it all — and not a gross, rotting disembodied demon heart or anything — that boils down to its real cast of characters who the audience cares about. These people are in absurd situations, but they’re anything but genre stereotypes. The series uses its characters to engage in some really thoughtful meditations on the ways in which grief controls us – and how we can control our grief. Haunted Hotel is full of ghosts, demons, and everything in between, but it’s really a show about family’s eternal bond and how it’s a stronger power than any supernatural purgatory.
There’s a confident, effortless tendency by Haunted Hotel to quickly wave away any grander “lore” details, like how this hotel is on one of the Earth’s six hell gates and the land has a comically cursed history. It rushes through these details because they ultimately don’t matter. In fact, the opening scene is such a perfect distillation of the sort of everyday supernatural obstacles that the Fisher family face as they try to successfully run a cozy hotel. It’s such a strong proof of concept that shows the audience exactly what type of series lies ahead, while it also barrels through a diverse mix of dangers that demonstrates the fluidity behind a “haunted” hotel, where ghosts are just the tip of the iceberg.
Once the fundamentals are established only a few minutes in, Haunted Hotel has free reign to go wild with its limitless premise. Each episode tackles a unique brand of supernatural threat in a manner that makes this feel like a series that could run indefinitely and that Netflix should invest in for the long haul, rather than a limited series that’s already struggling to be creative by the end of its first season. The show’s stories only grow more confident as the season progresses, but it still feels like it’s only scratched the surface of what’s possible in this series. The final episodes introduce even more exciting possibilities that are sure to add even more fuel to this fire as Haunted Hotel continues to pick up steam.
Haunted Hotel comes from Matt Roller, of Community, Rick and Morty, Archer, and Krapopolis fame, who cultivates the perfect eccentric pacing and tone for these stories that’s well within his wheelhouse. Episodes are full of snappy dialogue, wordplay, and gags, much like the rest of Roller’s work. Each installment tackles multiple storylines that are crammed with content, albeit always in a manner that amplifies the comedy. The standard episode juxtaposes normal family and school day slice-of-life stories with scary horror shenanigans.
Haunted Hotel has so much fun as it gleefully undercuts many horror staples like exorcisms, serial killers, black magic, Necronomicons, doomsday cults, and so much more. There’s an excellent twist in the first episode that’s almost immediately revealed for maximum comic effect. However, it also helps set the pace. Haunted Hotel is so dense in gags and satire that it’s able to burn through what would be A+ jokes in other series. It subverts beloved horror stereotypes to great effect. Animated horror comedies are reasonably niche subject matter, but it’s still material that’s been properly explored. Haunted Hotel succeeds in its genre-bending efforts, but what separates it from the rest of these supernatural animated comedies — or even the other Dan Harmon-created productions that Matt Roller has worked on — is its tender, earnest breakdown of grief, family, and finding order in chaos.
Casting is another area in which Haunted Hotel excels. Each cast member is carefully curated and understands how to get the most out of performers like Eliza Coupe, Skyler Gisondo, Jimmi Simpson and Will Forte. Forte is always a delight — in live-action or otherwise — but the show really takes advantage of his voice’s elastic nature and how he can be pulled from one extreme to another as his sanity gets stretched like taffy until it snaps. His casting as the pathetic, desperate Nathan is well within Forte’s range, but he does really inspired work here that only grows more entertaining as the season progresses. Some of Forte’s funniest work in years is in Haunted Hotel, which is saying something for someone with as impressive and eclectic of a career as him.
Nathan is such a fun foil for Katherine’s children, as if he’s some outlandish big brother. He has real Eldest Sibling Energy as he obliviously leads the blind through the hotel’s various perils. A simple, but crucial detail that helps Haunted Hotel avoid a typical pitfall is that Nathan is Katherine’s ghost brother, rather than a deceased husband. It may seem like a benign touch, but it makes such a difference. Eliza Coupe also provides a really understated performance for Katherine, which requires a lot of trust on the audience’s part. Coupe never oversells any of her moments and the character’s comedy is born out of the moments when Katherine’s muted veneer cracks. It’s a character – and performance – that will hopefully continue to evolve and come further out of its shell in subsequent seasons. Nathan and Katherine’s contrasting energy leads to an easy, casual energy between the Fisher family and the hotel’s respective spirits. There’s a real Brad Neely Harper House energy to Haunted Hotel and it certainly feels more Adult Swim or Super Deluxe than it does Netflix.
Haunted Hotel is full of silly supernatural specters and ludicrous scenarios. Yet behind these broad spectacles is a deeper analysis of how the universe can either be ruled by order or chaos. This is filtered through more specific topics, like family and success, as the central theme. As far as Netflix’s other heightened fantastical comedies, like Mulligan and Disenchantment, are concerned, Haunted Hotel is the strongest of the lot. It’s fun, clever, original, and isn’t afraid to showcase its more tender side, but it’s also not reinventing the wheel or pushing the medium to unprecedented places. It’s just a well-made animated horror comedy with a refreshing perspective on grief.
“Haunted Hotel” opens its doors September 19 with a 10-episode season on Netflix.
The post ‘Haunted Hotel’ Is a Love Letter to Horror That Will Hopefully Possess Netflix for Years to Come [Review] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
