Hotel Transylvania

What distinguishes Genndy Tartakovsky’s 2012 animation is not its story but its timing. The project had passed from hand to hand since 2006: Anthony Stacchi and David Feiss were followed by Jill Culton, Chris Jenkins and Todd Wilderman, and Tartakovsky took over in 2011 as the sixth director, making his first feature. The result shows it. A father and daughter plot assembled from standard parts is carried by an unusual sense of movement. Tartakovsky pushed computer animation toward the exaggeration of hand drawn cartoons, took Tex Avery as his model, and said he wanted to push reality rather than imitate it. His animators describe approaching the work as though it were a two dimensional film, trying to simulate smears in the in-between poses. The practical consequence is that gags pass in fewer frames and faster than in most family animation. A small child who needs a beat to catch a joke may fall behind in places. The monsters do no horror work at all; even the British classification summary reaches no further than mild scary scenes and rude humour. The film took the largest September opening weekend recorded to that point and passed 358 million dollars worldwide. For a viewer watching for movement and comic timing who accepts a wholly predictable plot. Not for one hoping the monsters unsettle anybody.