Hotel Transylvania 2 was released recently. Because I thoroughly enjoyed the first one, I was fairly excited to watch this promising sequel. After watching and reflecting on the movie, I am happy to say it did not let me down.

For those who have not seen the first movie, I recommend watching that first. However, for the context of this review, here is a brief synopsis: Count Dracula (Adam Sandler) has opened Hotel Transylvania, a lavish resort where monsters can be themselves without humans around to bother them. On one special weekend, Dracula invites creatures like the Invisible Man, the Mummy and others to celebrate his daughter Mavis’ (Selena Gomez) 118th birthday. However, an unforeseen complication arises when ordinary human Jonathan (Andy Samberg) unwittingly crashes the party and falls in love with Mavis.

The story begins where the first movie ended, with Jonathan being wed to Mavis. The story goes through several time skips following the wedding, starting with Dennis’s (Jonathan and Mavis’ child) birth up to shortly before his fifth birthday. Conflict arises when Dennis still hasn’t “fanged” or borne his vampire teeth, which, for some reason, cannot occur after the vampire has turned five.

Mavis, wary of whether Dennis will fang at all, travels with Jonathan to his hometown in California seeking a more normal life for the seemingly human Dennis.

As she is gone, Dracula, who was set in charge of watching Dennis, sets his plan in motion to get Dennis to fang. This insane attempt to “scare” the fangs out of Dennis looks marked for failure from the get-go. It will grip you and make you cringe, watching the trouble build up for Dracula. However, the ending is done well and will both surprise and leave viewers laughing. The movie also has a fair share of emotional moments, relating especially to parenting, in both watching one’s own child grow up and the struggles of raising a child.

Cinematically, the movie does a fantastic job. The scenery is animated beautifully and the soundtrack is done masterfully featuring hit songs like “Worth It” by Fifth Harmony and beautiful scoring by Mark Mothers. The voice acting was done surprisingly well, other than a few moments from younger voice actors, like Dennis’s, which is understandable.

Overall, Hotel Transylvania 2 was a pleasant sequel to an already good first movie. It blends many elements together well while keeping the story fun and enjoyable. For those looking for a nice change from the high-paced action thrillers trending in theaters right now, I can’t recommend this movie enough.