2024 Hallowe'en Movie Challenges Day 15

Ardeth Blood
Oct 15, 2024
2 min read

It's day 289 of the year and project, and that makes it Day 15 of the 31 Days of Hallowe'en challenges. I'm starting as always with my own 31 Days of Hallowe'en challenge, which I talked about back in August. And my mini challenge today is Kid Friendly/Gateway Horror. I picked Hotel Transylvania 2.

Mavis and Johnny are getting married. Not soon after, they have baby Dennis. On his 5th birthday, Drac is sure Dennis is going to turn out to be a vampire, but Mavis is starting to believe he's going to be human. As Johnny and Mavis decide to visit his parents in LA, thinking they might move there, Drac and the rest of the monsters decide to take Dennis on a trip around Romania. As it looks more and more like the little family will need to leave the monster world, Great-grandpa Vlad arrives for Dennis's birthday party, only he has no idea Johnny is human.

Of the four movies in the franchise, this is my personal favourite. It delves into some really adult situations and metaphors, never talking down to the audience. The first ten minutes is almost a montage, the story progresses so quickly, but it lays out just enough of the plot points in order to move the story along. We're introduced to about a dozen new characters, half of which are human.

And the mini challenge from the 31 Days of Horror Challenge being hosted by Nightmare on Film street, today is Lovecraftian. I actually decided to pick a documentary on the complete works of Lovecraft, Lovecraft Fear of the Unknown.

We take a look at the elements of H.P. Lovecraft's life that deeply influenced his works, through interviews with other horror and sci-fi writers.