Western Animation / Hotel Transylvania 2

They're back to raise a little terror.

The sequel to the 2012 animated comedy, Hotel Transylvania.

Mavis and Jonathan are happily married and have a son, Dennis, who isn't showing any vampire traits. Mavis thinks the castle isn't safe for Dennis, so she visits Jonathan's home in California to see if that's a good place to relocate. Meanwhile, fearing he'll lose his daughter and grandson, Dracula tries to push Dennis to show signs of being a vampire so Mavis will change her mind, constantly rejecting advice to turn to his own father Vlad (voiced by Mel Brooks), a classic count from the old guard who coached Dracula in the ways of the vampire through force. For Dennis' 5th birthday, Mavis likewise invites Vlad without telling Dracula, who also brings a truly threatening plus-one.

The movie was released on September 25, 2015.

Here's the teaser trailer.

The official trailer can be seen here.

The film was followed by an animated short titled Puppy!, and a second sequel, Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, which was released in 2018.

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Hotel Transylvania 2 provides examples of:

• 11th-Hour Superpower: After seeing Bela swipe away Winnie, Dennis immediately develops his fangs and gains the vampire powers.
• Actor Allusion:
  • Mel Brooks made and starred in a Dracula parody... as Van Helsing.
  • A video made of showing Drac throwing his grandson off the tower contains a picture of Gene Wilder from Young Frankenstein.
• Affectionate Nickname: Mavis still calls Johnny "Johnnystein".
• Armor-Piercing Response: Mavis gets this one when she tells Dracula, "Maybe you've let humans into your hotel, Dad, but I don't think you've let them into your heart."
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
  Dracula: Or he'll steal your family's souls and eat your backpack.
  Johnny: gasp
• Ascended Extra:
  • Blobby the blob from the previous movie now has a more prominent role instead of just being a bit character.
  • Winnie gets a lot more screentime and lines.
• Badass Family: Dracula, Mavis and Dennis kick some serious ass together in the climax.
• Balloonacy: Frankie turns Blobby into a Living Gasbag to fly everyone back to the hotel after the latter's scooter's battery dies. racing a train to a tunnel in the process.
• Bat Out of Hell: The vampires' bat forms avert this, but Bela and his group play it straight.
• Beware the Nice Ones: As in the first film, the monsters have long since lost interest in scaring humans and can't seem to put any effort into trying. But when confronted with an army of monsters who do still hate humans, they proceed to open ten kinds of whoopass on them in short order, protecting the humans to whom they've grown attached.
• Big Bad: Bela, Vlad's right-hand crony.
• Big Brother Bully: Dennis's human cousins are this to the five-year-old through most of the film. Subverted in the climax when they give Dennis respect and admiration after he finally comes into his vampire abilities and saves them from Bela's minions.
• Big Damn Heroes: Vlad, of all people, stops Bela from staking Jonathan with a branch.
• Big Entrance: How Vlad announces himself, plus a streak of Dramatic Thunder. Whilst indoors.
  Vlad: All right, where's my vampson?
  Dracula: [exasperated, to himself] Oh, please. Still has to make a dramatic entrance...
• Big "SHUT UP!": Drac, Mavis and Johnny say this to the Phantom of the Opera after they become fed up with his singing.
• Bowdlerize: Many television airings remove Kakie's line referring to diabetes as "the scariest monster of all", due to parents complaining about the implications.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Also can be labeled a Funny Background Event during the scene where Drac and Johnny are discussing social media. Behind them is an LCD wall mount showing flights to and from lost areas of no return or some such. Listed are the Bermuda Triangle, Atlantis, and Detroit.
• Brick Joke: This dialogue:
  Drac: Time for Dennis have some quality time with his Vampa.
  Frank: His what?
  Drac: Vampire grandpa! C'mon, man! That was obvious!
  [repeated again when Vlad and Bela arrive at the hotel]
  Bela: I smell HUMANS! TEAR IT DOWN!
  Vlad: Bela, we're in the outside world! Of course you're gonna smell humans! Y'know what? Just wait outside for me. This is family stuff. You'll only get in the way. I just wanna meet my little fanger. He should know his great-vampa.
  Bela: His WHAT?!
  Vlad: Vampire grandpa! C'mon! That was obvious!
• Bully Hunter: When Dennis's human cousins start to pick on him for allegedly being beat up by Winnie (she had merely tackled him and was showing him affection with dog licks), she viciously barks at them, scaring them into backing off, and even causing one of them to cry.
• Call-Back: Callbacks are made to two running gags from the previous film.
  Drac: I don't say "blah blah blah"!
  
  The Gremlin: I didn't do that.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Dracula gives one to his father by saying that he's the fool for not accepting the fact that his great-grandson is half human.
  Dracula: Your great-grandson is the sweetest, kindest, most special boy I've ever met. And if you can't give him the love he deserves because he's half-human, then you're the fool.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: To the monster bat colony at the end of the film. The Dracula family does most of the fighting, but just about everyone gets in on the action.
• Cutaway Gag: There are several throughout the movie.
• Dhampyr: Dennis, the son of Mavis (vampire) and Jonathan (human).
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Dennis pretty much does this to Bela after finally getting his fangs, followed by Bela getting a Groin Attack via tennis ball machine.
• Die or Fly: Drac invokes this by throwing his half-human grandson off an absurdly tall, rickety old tower and hoping that he flies before he hits the ground, citing it was how he was taught. What follows is an Overly Long Gag of his friends watching the child fall for around half a minute and Dracula repeatedly reassuring them that it'll be fine. He does eventually give up and catch his grandson at the last moment.
• Disguised in Drag: Drac dresses up as a nurse so that he can be in the room when Dennis is being born.
• Eating the Enemy: The elderly gremlin eats one of the bat beasts during the final battle.
• Edible Ammunition: A human in a monster suit (who's been possessed and turned into an actual monster by Vlad) shoots cakes out of his mouth as if they were cannonballs and he a cannon.
• Embarrassing Damp Sheets: Discussed. While talking to Drac and Johnny, Vlad mentions that as a child, Drac used to "pee in his bed".
• Everyone Can See It: Dennis tries to state that he and Winnie are just friends, but Drac sees right through it.
• Fake Static: Dracula uses it to avoid talking to Mavis when the conversation gets awkward.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • Similar to the previous film, though it's more of an Innocent Bigot type deal when it comes to Johnny's parents. In an effort to be welcoming, Johnny's parents invite over other "mixed couples" in the neighborhood — including a human couple where they thought the extremely hairy man was a werewolf.
  • A subtler example is when a couple drives by Drac on their tour. The man stops and asks Dracula if he knows a place to grab a bite, before the woman corrects him for poor choice of words. And then says he likes Dracula's chocolatey cereal. Ironically, the latter ends up being more offensive to Drac.
  • However, it's played completely straight with Bela, who could best be described as a monster supremacist.
• Flanderization: Dracula's reckless decisions and his refusal to take responsibility for them is notably more exaggerated than it was in the first film. He frequently puts Dennis in danger when trying to make him a vampire, and either downplays or deflects blame onto others when this repeatedly fails.
• Foreshadowing: The main building at the vamp camp resembles something out of a Thomas Kinkade painting, whose buildings have often been derided as appearing to be on fire.
• Free Wheel: After a tree falls on Drac's car and it explodes, Dracula and Denis staring in shock, a wheel is seen rolling away behind them with Wayne the werewolf in hot pursuit.
• Friendly Tickle Torture: Dennis often gets glomped and licked affectionately by Winnie.
• Funny Background Event:
  • While Mavis is talking to her dad before she and Jonathan leave for California, one can see Jonathan play with Dennis by making bubbles in his mouth and having Dennis pop them.
  • Frank is constantly eating the fire extinguisher foam the fire fighters spray on him.
• Furry Reminder: Multiple times Wayne ends up chasing balls or Frisbees around whenever someone throws them.
• Girlfriend in Canada: Griffin claims to have an invisible girlfriend. Frank asks him if she's the same girl he claimed was "in Canada."
• Glamour Failure: Vampires still can't be seen in mirrors and photographs, as demonstrated with the wedding pictures. Videos, like on cellphones or convenience store security cameras, work just fine.
• Good Versus Good: Dracula and Mavis come into conflict due to their mutual love of Dennis, and a conflict in how best to raise him.
• Hartman Hips: Linda has these. Additionally, a young brunette woman (dating a man mistaken for a werewolf by Linda) who shows up for about five seconds has some huge hips.
• Heel Realization: Dracula start one after the little campfire problem and is completed when he sees Vlad's attempt to scare Dennis into being a vampire actually upsets Dennis.
• Hero Antagonist: While only a small part, the Camp Counselor comes across as this when he threatens to report Dracula for child endangerment.
• Hypocritical Humor: Everyone tries telling Dracula that the incredibly tall and rickety flying tower is one giant safety hazard, but he refuses to listen to them. It then collapses due to an imbalance in weight and lands on the campfire, catching fire instantly. When this leads to the entire camp going up in flames and makes Dennis to feel bad, Dracula pushes blame on the tower and yells at Dana for having such an unsafe tower.
• Immune to Mind Control: The camp counselor at Camp Winnepacaca. Why?
  Counselor: I'm a vampire. I can't be hypnotized.
• Innocent Bigot: Linda means well, but she still pulls stuff like decorating Mavis's guest room like a Halloween party, and repeatedly referring to humans as "normal people".
• Insistent Appellation: Dracula insists on calling his grandson "Denisovich", much to the chagrin of his daughter's in-laws. Material included in the bonus features suggests that both the boy himself and his voice actor prefer this name.
• Insistent Terminology: Johnny is not a "hippie". He's a "slacker".
• Like a Duck Takes to Water: Johnny loves being in Transylvania and says he "hasn't felt this alive since they invented stuffed crust pizza." He even conspires with Dracula to persuade Mavis to stay.
• Long-Lived: Seems to be the implied case for most, if not all, monsters, as Dracula refers to when he and his friends were "in their hundreds," which includes Wayne and Griffin, who are living beings and not undead. Weather or not this means they all have Immortality is left ambiguous.
• Love at First Sight: Apparently Dennis is Winnie's "zing". And if it hasn't actually happened yet, her constant crashing into him suggests she is really trying to invoke it. Still, if they did "zing", it would have had to be when Dennis was pretty young, given that he's only just now turning 5, so he might not actually realize what happened. It also raises some concerns about whether Love at First Sight can happen with a baby.
  Winnie: Dennis! I love you! Zing, zing!
• Made of Incendium: When the Flying Tower at Camp Winnepacaca falls, it lands on the campfire, causing a small fiery explosion. Frank is then instantly covered in flames and, in a panic, runs into the main lodge ad all of the log cabins, leaving the entire camp in flames in less than a minute. Then a tree falls on Drac's car and it explodes.
• Made of Iron: Deconstructed. Monsters have very little concern over personal safety, as they either can't feel pain or heal quickly enough that it's not a big deal. This is one of the main reasons why Mavis wants to take Dennis to a human area.
• Man on Fire: Frank has the misfortune of this happening to him when the tower crashes to the ground and explodes. Unfortunately, since he has a fear of the fire that makes him freak out, he ends up running around a camp and smashing through buildings while inadvertently spreading the fire.
• Meeting-the-Parents Sequel: Drac's dad is introduced to us in this film.
• Monster Clown: The clown at Dennis's 2^nd birthday party. Played with in that it's a Non-Ironic Clown that happens to be a zombie.
• Mood-Swinger: Mavis is one during her pregnancy, naturally.
• Mundane Made Awesome: 24-Hour convenience stores, among numerous other human things, are fascinating for Mavis. Justified since she’s never been around human things before and, as a vampire, Mavis can only come out at night.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Vlad, Dracula's father, seems to be a reference to Vlad II Dracul, father of the man who inspired the original Bram Stoker incarnation of Dracula, Vlad the Impaler.
  • His right-hand vamp is named Bela, as in Bela Lugosi, who played Dracula in Dracula and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.
• Nature Tinkling: Blobby at one point pees on a tree. With four streams.
• Never Trust a Trailer: Subverted; Sony Animation released a video discussing the making of the movie's teaser trailer and claimed several parts of it were cut or altered in the final film, like Dennis spinning around and going "Again! Again!", and the tower falling and exploding in a fire on impact. It turns out though that both are present in the film, and the latter is a major plot point.
• No OSHA Compliance: The tower Drac's group climbs to get Dennis to fly. The thing is rickety, can barely hold the group's weight and, not surprisingly, falls when Frank leans too far to the side of it. Granted, the tower does have an (easily circumvented) chain-link fence around it, and has in fact been discontinued for precisely these problems, although it probably should've been dismantled altogether, given that it's tall enough to do a lot of damage if it falls, and unstable enough that falling is just a question of time.
• No-Sell: Dracula can't hypnotize the Camp Counselor since he's a vampire too. Also, Mavis can't intimidate the airport worker despite her Nightmare Face being as scary as Drac's.
• Overly Long Gag: When Drac tosses Dennis off the tower at the summer camp in hopes of teaching him to fly. For the first twenty seconds, Dennis is letting out a happy "WHEE!" as the other monsters try to convince Drac to fly after him and Drac calmly assures them everything is fine. Dennis has time to start screaming and scream for a good ten more seconds after that before Drac is finally convinced to do something.
• Pie in the Face: As Kakie is possessed by Vlad and turned into a real monster, he starts spitting out whole cakes, hitting several members of the audience in the face.
• Product Placement: Pretty much anything technology based in the film is a Sony product.
• Puppy Love: Dennis and Winnie. Bonus points for Winnie being a puppy, and licking Dennis to show affection.
• Retcon:
  • Drac is unable to hypnotize the vampire counselor of Camp Winnepacaca, as he puts in, "I'm a vampire, I can't be hypnotized." However, in the series, he was able to hypnotize Mavis at a young age.
  • Winnie's characterization, age, and design have all changed since the previous film. Of course, she would've aged anyway due to time passing, but her set age is lower than it should be, to make her a more believable love interest for Dennis.
• Ridiculously Alive Undead: Mavis the vampire becomes pregnant after she and Johnny get married, and she gives birth to Dennis the Dhampyr. During said pregnancy, she craves ice cream with anchovies.
• Russian Reversal: When Vlad possesses Kakie for the final time.
  Kakie: [in a very deep, booming voice] You don't eat cake — cake eats you!
• Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: Wayne pulls this off when attempting to track down — or at least, spook — a deer. Drac stridently berates him for that minutes later.
  Wayne: Okay... how's it go again, ow-ooo? No-no, that's for the moon. I growl. Okay, here goes. [creeps up on the dumbfounded deer] GROWL!
• Screeching Stop: When a swarm of Bat Cronies surrounds Drac, he freezes them in place, causing them to do an audible screeching sound.
• Seen It All: The Nightmare Face that Dracula always used to cow dissenters in the first film? Mavis has learned it, but airport personnel seem to be entirely immune to fear.
• Series Continuity Error: In the first movie, Jonathan mentioned he had six brothers, but in this movie he only has one, plus a previously unmentioned sister.
• Shipper on Deck: Dracula is very pro-Dennis/Winnie.
• Shout-Out:
  • The infamous red robe and hairstyle from Bram Stoker's Dracula appear (which was also a Sony/Columbia movie).
  • Dennis's favorite monster is a parody of Cookie Monster and Barney.
  • As noted above, Bela is a reference to Bela Lugosi.
  • At one point, Vlad addresses (albeit with a frustrated scoff) his son as the Prince of Darkness.
  • Bela being pounded by tennis balls seems rather similar to Inside Out, assuming the creators had time to adopt the scene.
  • In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, one of Dennis' toys Mavis packs into a box is clearly the child of Death from Deathigner. Quite an oblique reference, but it's there.
  • Dennis is infatuated with Batman, due to the many similarities between the caped crusader and his family. The viral video ends with several shots of Batman villains laughing.
  • Various comparisons can be made to this film's cast and that of The Munsters. Jonathan is to Herman (his "Johnnystein" persona from the first film, his big heart-small-mindedness), Mavis is to Lily (Dracula's daughter, in charge of the household, disagrees with the men in her family on their schemes while they scheme behind her back), Dracula to Grandpa (his attachment to his grandson, his love/hate, conspiring friendship with his son in-law, and, you know, being Dracula) and while Dennis is not a werewolf like Eddie, he does associate himself with Winnie and the other wolf pups.
  • A motorist, attempting to apologize for asking if Dracula knew "where to get a bite around here", mentions that he loves his chocolate cereal.
  • The viral video that alerts Mavis to Drac's shenanigans is hosted on a YouTube expy.
• Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer: There's no mention of Drac's father in the first teaser trailer. Bela and the other bat monsters are never mentioned in any trailers.
• Spit Take: Dracula spits his drink (which looks like blood) in shock all over Linda when he hears that Mavis invited his father Vlad to Dennis's fifth birthday.
• Stranger in a Familiar Land: Frank, Wayne, and Drac each get one while trying to teach Dennis how to be a monster.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Dennis has his mother's blue eyes, but other than that he is VERY much his father's son. He looks like a younger version of Jonathan, has the same sort of silly tendencies that Jonathan has (though to be fair, he's five years old), but he's also smarter and more aware of things than others realize.
• Summer Campy: The location of the tower is a summer camp for vampires.
• Sweet and Sour Grapes: Dennis turns into a vampire after Dracula accepts him as a human.
• Take That!:
  • The Phantom of the Opera who appears is the slightly-scarred, Hotter and Sexier version from many adaptations, as opposed to the genuinely monstrous version from the original novel. The other characters find him incredibly annoying, eventually telling him to "SHUT UP!"
  • Maybe also to the well-known "Red Suit, White Hair" depiction of Dracula from Bram Stoker's Dracula, which costume Jonathan adopts to disguise himself. Drac in this film isn't amused by it, and Vlad even says the hair looks like his "grandmother's boobies".
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: In-Universe, this is Dracula's reaction to the vampire summer camp.
• Time Skip: The very first scenes are of Mavis' and Jonathan's wedding, followed by three time skips, then the main plot right before the kid's fifth birthday.
• Teeth Flying: During the scene where Dennis is beating up Bela, at one point he uppercuts him so hard that it knocks some of his teeth out in the process.
• The Unmasqued World: The general populace is aware of monsters now. Humans have come to Dracula's hotel, there's at least one monster living openly in California, Jonathan has been working to modernize the monster world by teaching them to use technology and the Internet, and Frank and Drac are easily-recognized celebrities.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: Winnie responds to Dennis's cousins making fun of him by bearing her many sharp teeth and growling viciously enough that they backed off, and one even started crying.
• Wacky Cravings: Mavis craves ice cream with anchovies while pregnant with Dennis.
• Wasn't That Fun?: Dennis's reaction to the Die or Fly attempt.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Drac's friends have their doubts about Drac's teaching method for his grandson on how to fly and start panicking when it becomes obvious he isn't gonna fly before he hits the ground.
  • Mavis gives one to Drac for the above, too.
    Mavis: Maybe you've let humans into your hotel, Dad, but I don't think you've let them into your heart.
  • Drac gives one to Vlad when he goes too far trying to scare Dennis to become a vampire, instead upsetting him.
  • Mavis gives Drac and Johnny a minor one for initially going along with it, too.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: Dennis is far more aware of what is going on than others give him credit for. He knows full well that they were moving to California because he wasn't a vampire.
• Would Hit a Girl: Bela does this to Winnie, prompting Dennis to find his inner vampire.
• Zerg Rush: The youngest werewolves are this, first at a birthday party and later against a trio of Bela's minions when they are threatening their father.

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