Title: A Monsterous Holiday
Directed by: Gordon Crum
Starring: Sean Astin, Drake Bell, Jon Heder, Brooke Shields, Matthew Lillard, Kyle Chandler. Lauren Tom
Running time: 48 minutes, Not Rated (TV G)
Special Features: None
Andy (Drake Bell) is a wannabe scientist and just wants to win the Halloween science fair at school, but all of his experiments end up blowing up. In order to keep Andy out of trouble, his dad who’s also the football coach (Kyle Chandler), puts him on the team which will interfere with his experiments.
Andy goes to the home of Dr Frankenstein to maybe get some tips on how to create something cool for the science fair when he meets “Frank,” a green teenaged monster. While Dr Frankenstein is away at a plastic surgeon convention, Frank (Jon Heder) offers to help Andy instead. Frank tells Andy how unhappy he is about being home all alone all the time except on Halloween because it’s the only time he can go out without making people scream; however he prefers Christmas to Halloween, and has the house looking like Walmart in September. As long as Frank wears the football helmet, people will believe he’s Andy on the field. The plan seems to work until Andy’s mold experiment turns into a destructive giant monster that gets loose on the town.
The Negative: One of my pet peeves is when they give the name Frankenstein to “The Creature.” It’s lazy writing. The doctor was Frankenstein. This isn’t like in times of slavery when they took the name of their owners, give the dude a new name. At least they did address the title of “Frankenstein’s Monster, ” instead of flat out calling him Frankenstein, so I’ll forgive them a little for that.
The Positive: It’s short, it’s silly and it’s not terrible. Kids will like the animation and the cutesy characters. Parents can tolerate it because it’s short and there’s no cringe inducing high pitched character voices to drill into your brain if your kids want to watch it on repeat. I just liked the barking robot cat and Andy’s nerdy friend Spencer (Sean Astin) with his high standards for historically accurate monster costumes.
Total rating: C
Reviewed by: JM Willis
