It’s already getting crowded next year in the world of animated features. Let’s now add the German-made Monster Family to the list of first quarter releases in 2018. Directed and produced by Holger Tappe, the man behind several knock-off animated films (Animals United, an ersatz Madagascar; The Snurks, a wannabe Shrek; and so on), comes this flick that feels awfully like Hotel Transylvania.

With voices by Emily Watson, Nick Frost, and Jessica Brown Findlay, Monster Family will be distributed by DIRECTV and Viva Pictures – at first exclusively on DIRECTV beginning January 4th, 2018 – and a month later, February 9th, in select theaters and OnDemand February 9th, 2018. Here’s the trailer:

SYNOPSIS
The Wishbone family is far from happy. With a struggling bookshop, an overworked husband, and two misunderstood teenagers, Emma is at her wit’s end trying to be the perfect mom. After dragging her family to a costume party on Halloween night, they are cursed by an evil witch and transformed into a Vampire, a Mummy, a Werewolf, and Frankenstein’s monster. Now Emma will fight to keep her Monster Family together and uncover the secret of their curse… eventually leading them to the Prince of Darkness himself, Dracula!

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Jerry Beck

Writer, cartoon producer and author of more than 15 books on animation history. A former studio exec with Nickelodeon and Disney; currently on the faculty at both CalArts in Valencia and Woodbury University in Burbank, California.

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