Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Monster High: The Movie’ on Paramount+, a Live-Action-Musical Spinoff of the Pun-Laden Toy/Media Franchise

Monster High: The Movie (now on Paramount+) is the latest product churned out – with INTENSE PASSION I’m sure – by the corporate entities behind the billion-dollar Monster High fashion-doll/multimedia/misc.-merch empire. Hooray for corporate conglomerates and their marketing teams! Which isn’t to say that this particular work is more of the same – it marks two franchise firsts, by deviating from animation and going full-hog into the realm of live-action musicals, and for being a feature-length movie. On the other hand, nobody in their right mind is going to argue that it appeals to anyone but the preset tween demographic, preferably those whose families can afford to buy a bunch of branded crap during the next trip to Wal Mart.

MONSTER HIGH: THE MOVIE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Warning: REBOOT PENDING. We meet Clawdeen Wolf (Miia Harris) as she’s doing some totally tubular tricks at a skatepark. This is because she’s a werewolf, and werewolves have greater dexterity and physical strength than humans! And that difference makes her an outcast in the human world. Why does she live in the human world? Well, her late mom was a werewolf and her dad is human – but then she gets accepted into Monster High, where her mom was an esteemed student. This is great! Except it means she has to hide her human side lest she be expelled. Thus established is a dilly of a pickle of a conundrum: At Monster High, monsters are allowed to be their full selves, but humans aren’t allowed. Is this a metaphor for institutional diversity challenges? Does it expose the need for things to change there? Will Clawdeen have anything to do with that? NO SPOILERS.

Anyway. Clawdeen walks into Monster High on her first day and everybody breaks into song. Then we meet a bunch of characters: Frankie Stein (Ceci Balagot), a 16-day-old creation with they/them pronouns and body parts belonging to various geniuses, and Draculaura (Nayah Damasen), daughter of esteemed alum Dracula, are her roomies. Cleo De Nile (Jy Prishkulnik) is an unwrapped Egyptian mummy, and also the local mean girl. Deuce Gorgon (Case Walker), son of Medusa, is Cleo’s suuuuper cuuuuuute ex. Lagoona (Lina Lecompte) is sort of a fishy gill-person, I think? Ghoulia (Lilah Fitzgerald) is a zombie, and Mr. Komos (Kyle Selig) is a demon and hello-fellow-kids cool-teacher wannabe, and Headmistress Bloodgood (Marci T. House) runs the whole shebang and has a detachable head, GET IT? HEAD-mistress? Oh golly, the puns in this movie. So many puns. Without the puns, it would collapse into a black hole.

Some stuff goes on in this movie. Some of it involves Clawdeen reverting to human form when she gets angry or scared, which is a problem. Bloodgood enlists her to give a speech at an alumni dinner. Deuce shows an interest in being friends with her, oh boy. Draculaura is secretly practicing witchcraft, which is verboten at school. Frankie is totes socs awkws and tries to make friends by joining eight social-media platforms. Komos gives a history lesson on Mr. Hyde, who was the school’s only half-human, half-monster student, prompting Clawdeen to do some research on the guy, who had a hidden lab on campus and concocted a potion that would permanently turn himself into a monster and hot dog! You seein’ what I’m seein’? After lots of fertin’ around, we finally got ourselves a plot here! Will Clawdeen make herself 100 percent monster before her subterfuge is exposed, or will she learn to accept herself for who she is, or what? I says to you I says, NO SPOILERS.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Monster High: The Movie is like Bratz crossed with High School Musical if it was set at Hogwarts and once was briefly in the same room while a Guillermo del Toro movie was playing.

Performance Worth Watching: I liked Belagot as Frankie – they find a little traction in a character who’s naive but also incredibly smart (they got Turing’s cerebral cortex), and their performance leans into all this silliness without pounding home all these groanworthy jokes with a ball peen hammer.

Memorable Dialogue: Three Cleo-related humdingers:

“She’s got mummy issues.”

“Don’t Cleopatronize me.”

“Oh my gauze!”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: I’m sorry to report that the segregationist metaphor doesn’t take particularly deep root here. No, Monster High: The Movie is a shallow swamp content to slosh around in basic ideas about self-acceptance, diversity and accepting others’ different beliefs without ever being particularly substantive. You won’t be shocked to learn that major conflicts are resolved with enough fuss to make it almost interesting, but not enough to make it too interesting. Wouldn’t want to take too strong of a stand on anything when you’ve got so many product lines to sell during the spooky-season and holiday consumer corridors!

Not that anyone expects anything more from a Monster High joint, because all of this is conceptualized, crafted and polished in marketing boardrooms anyway. The performances and writing are Very TV; the musical bits are fine, just fine; the character and set design are goofy and colorful; there’s a third-act twist that you’ll NEVER see coming, like EVER. That’s the decent stuff. Less so are the just-shut-up-already talking villain, enough godawful puns to slay gobs of kittens in cold, cold blood, and that annoying sequel-tease. I haven’t the knowledge or context to address any disparities between this live-action effort and the original animated series, the reboot of the animated series, the reboot of the reboot of the animated series (coming soon to Paramount+!), the video games or the books, but suffice to say, it is different and some fans will be fine with it, and some won’t. Those who aren’t fine with it are encouraged to lodge a complaint, and may form a line along the left hand path.

Our Call: This is still better – and the jokes more sophisticated – than Rob Zombie’s The Munsters. STREAM IT, unless you’re not between the ages of 9-14 or have never cosplayed as Lagoona or Bloodgood at Comic-Con.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.