‘Hotel Transylvania 2’ Full-Length Trailer Released

Genndy Tartakovsky’s monstrous goofballs are going to California in the new trailer for Hotel Transylvania 2, arriving September 25.

When the vampiric Mavis and her human husband Johnny decide to take their baby Dennis to visit their (less monstrous) in-laws, Count Dracula assembles his pals Frankenstein, the Invisible Man, Murray the mummy, Wayne the werewolf, and their ridiculous new recruit Blobby to put the boy through a bloodsucker boot camp. It’s a relatively simple set-up that’s ripe for jokes, which Tartakovksy imbues with the type of cartoon physics that made his past work on everything from Dexter’s Lab to Samurai Jack must-see animation.

From the explosive physical expression of its characters to its manic action and freaky milieu, the new trailer for Hotel Transylvania 2 still manages to look and feel unlike almost every other CGI cartoon in the American marketplace. The mind reels at what Tartakovksy might have managed to accomplish on his CGI Popeye had he been able to stay on the project.

But Popeye’s loss is Hotel Transylvania’s gain, as Tartakovksy’s singular skills and smarts bring to life a franchise Sony didn’t even know it had until he left Cartoon Network following the cancellation of his criminally underrated Sym-Bionic Titan.

Like its predecessor, Hotel Transylvania 2 has a promising chance to outperform expectation, from its quite well-known cast, which now includes the legendary Mel Brooks as Count Dracula’s crusty dad Vlad, to its unashamedly cartoon sensibility aiming to evolve contemporary CGI animation past basic photorealism. The director’s next project, until we’re told otherwise, is Can You Imagine? — “a fantastic journey through one boy’s imagination” that sounds like the kind of wide-open, freeing project a major talent like Tartakovksy deserves.

We can only hope the Samurai Jack movie comes after that.