The hidden torment of Mavis Dracula-Loughran

Hello and welcome to The Popcorn Isn't Real. I'm Leif Eric. I'm here with my co-host Torvald. This is the podcast where we go over weird fan theories and alternate interpretations of some of your favorite films or least favorite films. Did you know that you have a theory the opposite of the predator theory, but it's about Dracula. It's like about embracing toxic masculinity. It is. No, it was not a theory. I was taught this. a university level class as far as i remember when you presented this theory to me you presented it as like actual like literature theory not like fan theory no this is real stuff that dracula was originally written as a critique on like feet on on male femininity and that men can only regain The status of a civilized male. And essentially that Dracula represents the traditional masculine male, the primal male that they cannot beat unless they become more like him. Yes.

So the reason that popped into my head, which we should actually do that theory, you know, we should actually do the Bram Stoker's Dracula. But the reason that popped into my head while I was watching and thinking about Hotel Transylvania is I was wondering, does that theory actually relate to our Hotel Transylvania theory? Because I kind of think it does. Well, I don't know. He's a pretty toxic man. But Jonathan is definitely more of a, like, a civilized, well, not civilized. Yeah, yeah, and Drac's teaching him to be toxic, like him. Like, that's the whole arc of Johnny is becoming more and more like Dracula. okay well this is uh this is actually a theory that we've uh we've gone through this once before this this episode was so edgy we decided not to air it it was so out of this world so like crazy we just think we didn't think it would go over well i mean it was just depressing well okay that

i think it's fun though i like it this is one of my favorite episodes i've always liked it would have been our second episode had we aired it and instead our second episode was suicide club which was i guess not as edgy i don't even i hate that that's a good one it's just us like aggressively arguing over nothing like over the smallest things neither of us has a horse in the races that we are competing and yet we're both so invested When we first started this podcast, we thought we needed to be a lot more. Combative? More of a debate. Yeah, combative. Yeah, we were that. Which really made us just repetitive and really slowed everything down. So eventually we kind of decided to stop that. Occasionally we still raise a few little points against the theory. But obviously there's no point in being competitive against fan theories because they're extremely easy to prove false. Yeah. They're wrong.

They're objectively not true. So it's kind of pointless to try and prove it both. We're both all in on the insane things that we are positing. But yeah, I mean, so I've been wanting to cover this theory for a long time. Basically, it was my first idea for a fan theory to cover when we started even discussing the podcast. It's about Hotel Transylvania. It's about the whole series, but mainly number one and two. Like you said, this was kind of what inspired the podcast. You told me a theory about this for like two hours on the phone. Yeah, I know. And then we were like, hey, wouldn't it be fun to do that again? And then we did it again. And then we were like, dude, we should do this again in a few years. And now here we are doing it again. Third time's the charm. But previously you had spent like two hours telling me about a theory about Robert Redford actually is dead in a movie featuring only Robert Redford.

I was pretty sure I told you about that after we were already doing the podcast. No, that was before the podcast. I remember you told me twice in a row about fan theories, and I was like, well, maybe we should just do a podcast about this. What is wrong with me? Why was I doing this podcast off air before we were doing this podcast?

So Hotel Transylvania 1 and 2, released in 2012 and 2015, both directed by The prolific Genndy Tartakovsky, he's a master of animation and directing. He did Powerpuff Girls, Dexter's Lab, Samurai Jack, Star Wars, The Clone Wars. The best Star Wars movie aside from the original trilogy. I may not be like a huge fan of every single thing that he has released, but I mean, you've got to respect the guy. Like he's he's done a lot of work in in the world of animation. There is a theory that his Popeye movie was canceled so that the emoji movie could live. Oh, which is a really interesting theory. Basically, Sony pulled the plug on his Popeye movie because they didn't have faith in it. They thought that it didn't have the legs and they were like, emoji movie is where it's at. That movie is going to make that movie is going to make waves. It's going to last forever, and people will never forget about it.

It's going to make tons of money. You had me at Sony right there. You know, what if Spider-Man was into, like, really dirty stuff? What if he was super kinky? Kids love that. Kids love that nowadays.

That's what the executive said in an infamous, like, email or something. All the Sony executive emails were leaked as part of the big hack a few years back. And there was some questionable emails about the direction of the Spider-Man character in the Amazing Spider-Man series. That makes that robot chicken sketch even better. Because it actually was Sony doing the Popeye movie. Yeah, I know. It was the Sony.

We don't think that spinach will jive with our Gen Z demographic. what do you think i should eat kale or something no popeye's a sailor who likes eating ass oh you know this really speaks to me i mean you know my personal fan theory that popeye exists in the one piece universe um and that uh he's eating the devil's spinach spinach fruit yeah no no it's the spinach spinach vegetable it's not a fruit oh man that's it's a good theory and there's like a surprising amount of evidence for it um i just have to watch you know all of one piece which i think that won't take me long you know it's gonna it'll be quick so yeah kendy tartakovsky he he's the man behind the hotel transylvania series alongside adam sandler and then oddly enough both of them got like muscled out of it for hotel transylvania 4 which was made without them um i don't know what happened there i'm assuming that genji tadakovsky and adam sandler didn't have faith in the story that was

being pushed for hotel transylvania 4 so they dropped like they're just like we're out that's what i'm guessing happened but it could be impressive if you can get a big like actor to drop out of a voice acting role well i mean even more impressive voice acting roles for their entire life like shrek or antonio vanderas yeah i mean they won't do it for like a tv show but for any theatrical release right i mean to me what's more impressive is getting adam sandler to drop out of something because of low quality like what since when does this guy care about quality he made eight crazy nights for crying out loud and uh he made the worst movie all time we already covered that yeah you'll be well so that's my favorite aspect of the hotel transylvania theory actually is that it gives us another opportunity to just drag adam sandler's face through the mud um because like i said he was heavily involved i believe he got writing credits for at least one

and two and i think three um and of course he voiced uh dracula the the father figure of the series right right yeah he's an uncut gem so well he's quite the uncut gem so what is the story of hotel transylvania i guess it's kind of dracula jonathan goes to this hotel where monsters live and dracula runs the hotel jonathan who is a normal human sorry um falls in love why don't to let me do this falls in love with the daughter of dracula mavis yeah okay i know it's a stupid what is the story of hotel transylvania basically an overprotective single father dracula is raising his daughter mavis alone oh yeah it's father of the bride mixed with it is basically kind of sort of father of the bride um so he has been scarred by harassment and assaults from humans in the past uh which culminated in the murder of his wife um so he he hates humans he basically has developed a massive paranoia verging on racism towards humans and he will do anything to keep his daughter

away from them but then one day his daughter meets a kind and free-spirited young man named jonathan uh the two of them fall in love and dracula is forced to come to terms with the fact that his daughter may not share his worldview and that she may want to be with a human and leave him someday hotel transylvania 2 is about dracula coming to terms with his grandson dennis being a human and after multiple attempts to force uh dennis to become a vampire yeah basically he does become a vampire but then also at the same time i know at the same time mavis has to cope with the fact that her son may not be safe living with dracula and the other monsters and that maybe she will have to move to a new country sounds almost like dracula learns nothing over the basically is i mean sort of a movie about the old ways are the best way right you might exist having heard my description of these two movies you might ask is that really the story of these

movies because it sounds like a whole lot of nothing happens um so i'm gonna tell you the real story of hotel transylvania one and two the real story is really i thought we were just gonna end the episode yeah we're done hotel transylvania is the story of domestic emotional abuse and control within a family um dracula is consistently uh establishing and reinforcing his power as the father figure um and and of course as the legendary count dracula he is using his power to influence and control his daughter and later his son-in-law as well and then his grandson um he is not just protecting Mavis he needs to be in charge of her he keeps her locked in the house for 118 years he won't let her leave the house for over a century his abusive personality only grows and festers as his family grows and Dracula massively and purposefully controls the development of his poor grandson Dennis intentionally putting Dennis in danger just to establish dominance over his

own bloodline no but first uh this probably should have gone earlier uh trigger warning and this is a real trigger warning not like the dumb ones we might put in front of a harry potter theory well dude if you hit if you like ron don't listen to this episode because we're gonna be talking a lot about ron we don't like ron he's uh he's harry potter's stupid friend his words not mine no this is a trigger warning a real trigger warning uh this is one of the reasons we didn't air this episode before we do talk a lot about abuse uh family abuse the problem here throughout the first movie is that Mavis always submits to Dracula and nobody ever stands up for her none of her friends none of Dracula's friends not even Johnny what do you mean her friends yeah does she have any friends of her own that are not also dracula's friends i guess the whole climax of this movie it is cementing this uh her submission to dracula

when she realizes that dracula lied to her johnny's a human and she still decides to be with him she says screw it i don't care what my dad says i'm gonna be with you johnny and then johnny's like uh no and then he uh he ditches her he submits to dracula is like i'm out i don't want i don't even like you uh and it's only after dracula allows her to be with johnny that she can uh and in the end she just has to accept that it's uh her life is actually in control of dracula so you don't believe that this was because dracula actually had a change of heart over the course of his arc in this movie but no he just didn't like it because he made the decision not he wanted to keep he wanted to keep control and that to him was more important than his racism against humans yes 100 and this is proven if you just watch the second movie like watching only the first one you might think he had a change of heart they didn't have a change of heart watch the second movie he's

just as much of a jack-off as he was in the first one um so in the second movie mavis attempts to stand up for herself again uh she sums up her courage she recognizes the dangerous and toxic environment her baby's growing up in and in a show of desperation and bravery she tells dracula that they're moving away and she makes plans to to take action and make it happen dracula just basically goes completely nuts uh he he ropes jonathan in on this insane like baby kidnapping and brainwashing scheme um and then just proceeds to endanger the baby over and over and culminates in like throwing it off a cliff well off of a huge tower actually um yeah i do have to say for our our listeners uh this this is more depicted you know from a humorous from the mainstream point of view as it being like he is a person of the older tougher generation he wants to take this kid out toughen him up show him how to be a man or in this case a monster camping or

whatever does the whole like you throw them in the water so they'll learn how to swim except instead it's learn how to fly um and that's kind of what it's trying to be a riff on is is that those tropes no it's not it's about abuse what are you talking about you shut up so the climax of this movie i just think most people don't watch this and get like traumatized well that's why they're listening to this podcast so they can understand the horrific so people could know the the horrors hidden within the hotel transylvania series often accepted about this movie that that would be the more mainstream interpretation which of course we do not subscribe to yeah so the the climax of this movie is all about dracula basically getting his way when he manipulates denis into actually becoming a vampire which removes mavis's only bargaining chip and she is forced to submit to him and abandon all of her plans and uh despite everything that dracula's done she announces at

the end of the movie that dracula was right all along and they can live with him now um which is just the most horrible like heart-wrenching sad ending i think it's really funny that the hotel transylvania series is supposed to be like uh you know it's like oh horror movie you know horror characters but it's actually comedy where when you really look at it like it's far more horror than comedy like there's a lot of horrors hidden within these movies in the first movie and hotel transylvania one dracula single father raising mavis all on his own and i have to give him points for this he did raise her it seems like he took good care of her and he also built and ran a huge hotel all by himself yeah as far as we know he could have maybe maybe he threw her off a tower when she was a baby yeah he probably did i know you see him teaching her to fly he taught her to fly by tossing her off the bed he'd never threw her off a tower he even put a helmet on her while

she was learning to fly he didn't give dennis a helmet i guess it's because he he's a man you know he's he's a boy a male child he's got to toughen him up maybe i think that just like casita did with bruno whoa yeah horrible casita i think everyone would agree with us that casita was the main bad guy of uh incanto well not the main bad guy just casita chose to not give mirabelle a gift just because she wasn't from his bloodline no sure sure he's bad i'm just saying the worst i think disney villain of all time is probably abuela yeah man i mean i wish that like a gecko had tripped her with a giant strand of hair and shoved her off of a roof out of a tower just the other day they were saying talking about how like like people don't interpret abuela to even be a villain i'm like uh well excuse me yeah dracula he seems like a devoted father uh but he does spend quite a bit of time feeding Mavis lies about humans, about how they bite your toes and burn your clothes and steal

your candy. He also spends a lot of time telling her that she is safe, but that the only reason she is safe is because she is here in his castle and that he will protect her forever and that she will never leave. He proceeds to do this over the next century because a whole century later, Mavis is now turning 118, and she's still never left the house. She's never been outside. They kind of try to imply that she is, that that's like turning 18, like she's an adult now. No, it's not. She's literally just a 118-year-old woman. She is an old lady who's never left the house and is locked inside and being treated like a child. It's insane. It's actually crazy, the situation that she lives in. So yeah, it's Mavis' 118th birthday, and all of her closest friends are here. Oh wait, it's all of Dracula's closest friends. Mavis doesn't have any friends, as you pointed out. So as the guests show up for her big party, Dracula treats everybody to an anti-human rally,

indoctrinating them with anti-human lies and a slideshow. It's the weirdest thing ever. It's a little odd. He's like, welcome to my daughter's party, now. anti-human rally okay but couldn't this be interpreted to be that that he is running a hotel and this is just a normal thing he shows to hotel guests i mean the reason it's there is for exposition right it's for the viewers of the movie but it's not like he's like now at during your stay at hotel transylvania keep in mind that humans are prowling about so make sure you don't enter this area or go he's not doing that he's just like he's basically just saying like yeah they're getting more and more dangerous uh these humans they'll never stop until they've taken your jobs and raped your daughters oh i don't think he says that he looks at his watch and it's five o'clock there's another trigger warning after his anti-human rally uh dracula is also like

moody and angry uh when his best friend frank frank and stein uh quips that dracula's little girl isn't so little anymore. Dracula absolutely flips out and screams and roars and exits the room full of his closest friends who are all just staring in shock for several seconds until the scene changes. One could argue that he is a monster and perhaps monsters do this all the time, but the fact that they are staring at him makes it seem like it is a rare occurrence. We cut to Mavis and as a 118 year old lady she has to ask her dad's permission to leave the house and you might say this is normal because 118 year olds are senile and need you know a caretaker but she's not she she is in perfectly good condition she basically has the body of mind if she's senile then drack is far more senile yeah she is an adult who is not allowed to leave without her daddy's permission which is very very like icky to me um and she's preparing for him to say no like he won't give her

the permission and she knows it she has to psych herself up it's practicing like emotionally a huge deal for her to ask permission to go outside and when he actually agrees that she can go visit the town she is like blown away and she hugs him and you know lovingly is like oh thank you for trusting me and then what does she do she goes and gets knocked up by the first guy she meets well i mean with his permission but yeah um dracula when he lets her leave he constructs a fake town like he builds a town and then fills it with zombies dressed as villagers and forces them to assault mavis with fire and pitchforks and garlic all things that can hurt her and and like they're violent and crazy they're stabbing each other and setting each other on fire like it's not a safe situation and he's like you know as she flees in terror uh he's like smiling and congratulating himself he's he's so he succeeded he did and he's so happy as he you

know later on comforts mavis uh she explains the horrible things that happened he's like oh yes it's okay and then he justifies everything uh well they they said they would um they said they were gonna steal her candy and bite her toes and burn her clothes jonathan shows up at the hotel and dracula his main concern is that if mavis sees johnny in his own words he says she'll know that i lied that's all he cares about he's not concerned because of humans here he's not like ah this guy's gonna attack us he's gonna steal our candy and bite our toes he's not worried about this human being here at all genuinely interesting evidence because that shows that it is racism on his part in that he knows yes any of the things that he said they are they're not dangerous he just doesn't like them and he doesn't want mavis to know he's lying about and he's brainwashing not only humans that much he's just using them as a way to keep his daughter in the house right

it's all for it's all to keep power he's basically holding like you know typical republican rallies to get people whipped up in hatred towards, you know, the outside group. Make Transylvania great again. But yeah, I mean, it shows that everything that he's been saying to her and to all of his best friends in his rallies, it's all lies. And he knows it because he's like, now she'll know that I lied. I mean, just to show the kind of person he is, despite knowing that he is lying about humans and they're not dangerous, he says that he would kill Jonathan right here and now, But he doesn't want to set monsters back hundreds of years. So what does that mean? Does that mean that people know about monsters in this universe? Yes. And they've come to accept them. And by setting monsters back, he's thinking that it would become a news story if he killed Jonathan. Right. So this is actually revealed towards the end of this movie and then expanded on in Hotel Transylvania 2.

But this is a universe where monsters and humans coexist. Humans know about monsters, and they don't mind monsters, and they celebrate monsters, and monsters don't hurt humans. Well, that does make it much worse to have a monsters-only hotel, I think. It really does, yes. If they're living in an integrated society. He has kept them in this bubble where they don't know that the rest of the world has accepted monsters. But he does know, because this comment proves it. Because he says, I don't want to send monsters back hundreds of years. He knows that monsters have been accepted by humans and he's still holding these anti-human rallies and not letting his friends go out in public. Johnny even asks Dracula, he says, isn't monsters hating humans racist? He technically says, isn't monsters killing humans racist, I guess. But then Dracula just says, we'll talk later. So yes. But then wait, isn't Jonathan,

If we're comparing them to races, isn't Jonathan dressing up as a Frankenstein kind of like blackface? Yes. That would be racist. So it's technically whiteface because the monsters are the whites in these movies. But anyway, yes. Dracula basically forces Johnny to dress up in whiteface for the rest of this movie so he can fit in in this, what's it called? White glove party? Is that what it is? I forget. There's like a word for these only white people parties. White power? no anyway um and then in the second movie they have a uh a white face um a white face party where they make all the humans dress up as monsters but anyway we'll get to that so basically johnny and mavis meet they start to get along frank mentions to dracula frank being frankenstein of course uh he says hey mavis and johnny sure are hitting it off aren't they and dracula responds that Mavis could never be with someone of his kind which Frank gets really offended by because

right now he thinks Johnny is a Stein they they dress Johnny up as a Frankenstein's monster so Frank is like hey what is that supposed to mean um which is proof that Dracula's reaction like his his comment is legitimate racism and is treated as such by other monsters when directed towards them it's wrong when he directs it towards frankensteins so it's just as wrong that he directs this hatred towards humans in my opinion now the screenwriter in me would say that uh this is just to show the arc because this is earlier on in the movie this is to show the arc that he can make his potential for change by showing how bad he is at the beginning similar to father of the bride where the father of the bride you know is shown to be wrong he doesn't want all those hot dog buns right well he's just essentially shown to be wrong in everything he does and it's about him kind of learning a lesson letting go of his daughter kind of thing it's well it's a good

thing to teach kids to not be racist right so i get that and if the movie ended with him being you know having some sort of redemption where he changes his ways then that could give a good message to kids but i don't think this movie ends like that let's find out okay johnny and Mavis share a tender moment watching the sunrise on the roof. He kind of helps her to stay in the shadows and watch it, which I guess she's never tried before. She expresses to him how she feels having been stuck in this hotel for a century. And in I think the next scene when Jonathan is together with Dracula, he finally actually does talk to Dracula about it. This is the only time in the entire series that Jonathan openly addresses the issue of Mavis being held hostage in the house because basically Dracula says well now you have to stay here and he says fantastic I'm trapped here now I know how your daughter feels I the reason I'm pointing this out is I just want to

say that this shows that Johnny understands Mavis's situation he's not stupid but this comment is the entire extent of him standing up for her ever even as her husband uh he never really expresses any any more dissatisfaction to her being yeah you know subservient to dracula and himself and while mavis in most of the movies is generally an oppositional force to whatever dracula is trying to do jonathan tends to be involved jonathan is always on dracula's side yes to a large extent jonathan is roped into dracula's plans against his will sometimes but i think he actually also uh you know i i think he enjoys his position of power in dracula's family and i think he's actually going along with it uh of his own volition well he doesn't want to move back to the real world he certainly doesn't he loves his cushy job that uh dracula gave him which he is not uh qualified for but anyway so when johnny and mavis are kissing later on at the birthday party

dracula freaks out screaming at them he says you are not allowed to kiss he says this to a 118 year old woman who is definitely allowed to kiss whoever she wants to um right well he's just an overprotective father this is where the movie really picks up though johnny is discovered Everyone finds out that he's a human. Dracula finally comes clean to Mavis, but he defends his actions. His only regret seems to be that she still wants to leave and be with Johnny. He doesn't really, you know, he doesn't care that he's been brainwashing her all these years. He's just like, oh, no, I'm losing my power. Everyone else is freaking out that Johnny's a human because they all think humans are dangerous because of what Dracula has been teaching them. But Mavis, she looks past Dracula's lies. She hugs Johnny and accepts him and tells him that she still wants to be with him. johnny thinks about it then looks at her dad uh dracula and then he sides with dracula and lies

to her he says tough i don't want to be with you because you're a monster and i hate monsters and then he storms out um leaving mavis heartbroken and betrayed and trapped with her abuser she shouldn't forgive him for that even yes he really should i know because that's like something like you're black and i hate i know no it's a major problem later in the movie when she just like completely glosses over this i mean in his defense he does even say in the end um he says that i only lied because i was i was afraid your dad would suck my blood and kill me if i didn't and dracula acknowledges this he's like yes i would have murdered you mavis is sobbing on the roof and she turns to her dad and says will you do me a favor will you erase my mind which i didn't even know that dracula had the power to erase somebody's mind let alone another vampire's mind people he can hypnotize people i guess he can turn them into his thralls but i didn't know he could erase

their minds um and i don't think he can do that to another vampire based on the second movie when he tries to hypnotize another vampire and he can't so i don't know perhaps he's been telling mavis lies about what he can do because i think if he could turn her into a thrall he would have based on what you've told me about dracula yeah so if she believes that he can erase her mind probably because he said he can right even though he most definitely cannot well and this is uh i think supported by his response which is not mavis what the heck are you talking about i can't do that and i would never do that because that's horrible instead he says no i won't do that there's too much i want you to remember which is just the weirdest response to that it's it's so odd no that makes perfect sense based on your theory because he's like i've invested a lot exactly memories i wouldn't destroy everything i've built well it's yeah i yes but it's just

such a weird response because it just like it only serves to reinforce him as like the pillar of power in her life right like instead of like no i would never hurt you or no why would you even say that mavis i love you you know like why i won't do that there's too much i want you to remember it's just so weird anyway very odd scene so mavis at this point comments uh you should be happy dad i have no more reason to leave i have no more dreams i'm just like you now oh wow bird yeah i know i mean you got him good yeah i the only reason i mentioned this just because i like anytime mavis stands up for herself i have some things to say about the zing yeah you can we can talk about the zing now what do you want to say about the zing you only zing once okay so you better zing it hard and zing it fast and make it memorable i just want to point out that from a mainstream perspective most people who i know who've seen this movie what they came away as being

the questionable message of this movie wasn't that it's about abuse, but the message of you only zing once, which is a stupid thing to say. Dumb that it's like the catchphrase of this movie randomly toward the end. It's weird. It's meaningless, but what it means in the context of the movie is that you can only fall in love once, which is really a terrible message to teach kids. Yeah, it is. And this isn't even a fan theory. This is right on the surface. They say it a billion times. And it's out of nowhere, too. Like, what does that have to do with the movie? Where does this word zing come? You'd think they could come up with a more monstery-sounding word. I don't know what it would be. I don't know. I don't know. Anyway, it's just weird. Well, because it's like, who even says zing? Yeah. Zing is like when you insult someone. You're like, zing. Maybe. Yeah, it is. No, I mean, I guess I take it to my interpretation because the third movie completely counteracts

this and is like you can zing as many times as you want yeah exactly which i appreciate jonathan says i thought you could only zing once and mavis is just like well apparently not yep no and i think the third movie might be my favorite in the series um even though it's probably like you know maybe not right not everybody's favorite but yeah the third movie i think is more chill and more down to earth it doesn't center around abusing mavis so much so i like the third movie a lot better and plus you can sing as many times as you want in the third movie where this phrase comes from is mavis's 118th birthday present from her mom she left mavis a present that was specifically not to be opened until her 118th birthday which is odd and arbitrary like why did she have this prepared did she know she was gonna die and why 118 oh yeah but um it's basically just like a little just kept it that long he had like

forgotten about it and he found it and was like oh i was supposed to give this to mavis from her mother i don't know when he pulls it out it's got a note on it that says do not open until your 118th birthday and like womanly handwriting so i don't know it's basically just a little poem that her mom wrote about how she met dracula and they fell in love and in that poem it talks about uh They zinged, and you only zing once. And I kind of take it to mean that she only zinged once, because she died. So she could have zinged more times, but she couldn't. And everyone else, of course, can, because they didn't die. I've heard a lot of fan theories that Dracula's wife, Lady LeBove, there's, like, fan theories that she was attacked by humans and not killed, that, like, she was trapped in the burning house and has been trapped there ever since, still alive, but in constant anguish. And the support for that fan theory is that Johnny,

he recognizes the painting of her in Dracula's bedroom. And he says, I've seen her. That's Lady Lebeau. And he says, I've seen that painting in my favorite castle, Castle Lebeau. They say that her tormented soul still walks the halls and you can feel her presence sometimes. I think that it is dumb, though. And she definitely died because in this in this movie, they just imply that lots of things can kill vampires. Like, I actually really like the conversation he has with Johnny, where Johnny's like, so is it all true? Like, what about garlic? And he's like, I can't have it. It makes me swell up. And then he's like, what about a steak to the heart? And Dracula's like, yeah, well, who wouldn't that kill? So that was a good response to that. In the end of the movie, Dracula sort of kind of has to pay the price for his prejudices. um he gets like a sunburn and has to like fly and catch up with a plane to admit to johnny that he

made a mistake and get johnny to come back but then he kind of like ruins it by saying basically that my mistake was just that i'm so protective and i love my daughter so much oh my gosh he is a boy he he is a boy exactly um he's like yeah i was a horrible person but just because of love i mean i just love her so much that i want to abuse her i'm sorry i held on too tight that's the end of the first movie now on to hotel transylvania 2 and i have even more to say about hotel transylvania 2 than hotel transylvania 1 i know dude we've done this before you said the same thing last time i know all of mavis's life dracula's been singing to her a song that i guess he wrote where she's daddy's girl and this uh the second movie starts with him changing that song to say that she's johnny's girl but also daddy's girl so she'll always belong to someone and he makes sure she knows it it's not just some you know endearing song that he wrote for his daughter

that he loves allow me to dissect that note i love you you is the object of this you are his object dude yeah that's basically the logic i'm using here so after she gets pregnant dracula forces himself into the entire process he controls her diet he commands her not to eat what she craves because he says it's bad for the baby which i'm like what i i'm pretty sure that people i i don't know if this is true or not but what i've heard is that when you have a craving it's because the baby is like lacking some vitamin or mineral and your craving will satisfy that that yeah that's what i've heard generally you're on a vitamin supplement that will have all the nutrients you need right now what kind of stupid like old school logic is it that you like no don't give in to your cravings only eat certain foods no let the pregnant woman eat whatever the heck she wants i don't understand why do you need to control this dracula like what's

wrong with you it's not your baby you weird man well i know there are some things you're supposed to stay away from like things that can be have bacteria like shellfish i think and stuff in uh in flintstones when wilma asks for food when she's pregnant and he comes and offers her like a big lobster or something yes i don't know he offers her a bunch of random things yeah she says a glass of water he says you water you don't know nothing about having a baby i think i would say it's like old person mentality but that movie was or that episode was specifically making fun of fred flintstone being an idiot right so even old people know this is dumb just let the pregnant woman get what she wants well i mean a lot of the hotel transylvania series is making fun of dracula being an idiot right he's kind of the comic relief his controlling nature extends to even like when she's having the baby he's not allowed in so he like dresses up as

a nurse woman and sneaks in oh gosh i forgot about that yes uh which is weird um and then one of the zombies like makes a pass at him men can't be nurses yeah i guess i mean according to dracula like i wouldn't say that right right i'm saying that he's he's an old person yeah exactly old people thought he is very much an old person though he's like several right yeah oh and then he insists to mavis and johnny and johnny's family that the baby dennis has a vampire name which he made up uh denisevich uh he decided this himself uh nobody else not the parents or the grandparents or the friends nobody calls the baby denisevich only dracula i believe that denisevich means son of dennis wow i'm pretty sure the bitch is like johnson like but but from you know that kind of eastern european area oh that's pretty cool so he doesn't know his own language or he thinks johnny's name is dennis wow but he thinks that's his first name so he would be denisovich

jonathanovich well yeah i mean to me the even weirder thing is that this is basically akin to like if i married a person of color and then my parents decided that my kids needed a white name and kept calling my kids their white name, I would think that that was massively inappropriate and I would be like, stop that. Key and Peele have some really good sketches about white people names and black people names. Dude, I literally just like an hour ago watched the Continental sketches. Wow, that's unrelated, but those are good too.

Continental breakfast? It's like go-guts to stay. you've always been here extra leg room at least an inch i'm not even sure what the joke is in those sketches he's very impressed by everything but that's not the joke the joke is that he's in some sort of twilight zone time loop right the punchline is completely unrelated he's in a horror movie in many horror movies he's also in like the terror at 20 000 feet so mavis is being a good parent and she's like trying to baby proof this incredibly dangerous uh hotel and dracula uh basically like right in front of her turns to all of their friends and is like laughing at her and saying oh she's so overprotective and completely dismissing her well-founded fears just want to note as they're going through the montage of the zombies baby proofing the the the hotel many zombies are injured due to the exact things that they're trying to baby proof so if a zombie could

get injured then a baby could definitely get injured by those things so her fears are completely justified yeah wayne actually says that the baby has to get his fangs by the age of five in order to be a vampire what would wayne know about that i don't know he's raised like 20 werewolves but he doesn't know anything about raising a vampire all right and i kind of think maybe wayne's wrong and dracula might know it but he goes along with it just you know because he wants dennis to get fangs um because later on when uh when dracula's dad vlad shows up he is not worried at all that dennis doesn't have fangs um he's just like oh he's a late fanger and he knows he's there for dennis's fifth birthday party so jonathan is offering very little support to uh to mavis uh in fact right there uh later on in front of dracula jonathan has a a text conversation on his phone with with mavis that he reads out loud to dracula where he basically uh asks her to go

on a date with him and she says no because she has to take care of the baby and then he responds in a jealous, babyish rage saying, I need love too. Yeah, that part is a little weird that he's reading them to Dracula. But isn't there like a really, really funny joke in this movie that we may have skipped over? And then Johnny's like, well, Dracula can't like type on the phone because he's got long nails. And Johnny's like, that's okay. You should just get Bluetooth. And then Dracula's like, okay, Bluetooth. Come here. And then a giant blue tooth walks over and they all look at the camera like kind of bored and Dracula says, now what? Now what? It's a pretty good joke. That's good humor right there. This is literally my favorite joke in the entire Hotel Transylvania series. I just, mere hours ago as I watched it with my kids, I rewound it like three times for that joke. I was like, kids, you don't want to miss this.

You got to watch this joke. Which, I mean, to them was even better because they don't know what Bluetooth is. They were just like, hey, why does he want a Bluetooth?

So up next is Dracula just being incredibly weird and creepy. He sneaks into the baby's room at night and wakes up the baby to practice being a bat, even though Dennis has preschool and a wolf birthday party the next day. But from Dracula's perspective, he is usually awake at night. Like, night is his day. Yes, but Dracula's also awake during the day. The metal is his ground. Wait, what? The metal is his ground on the wall he built. Whoa!

He built this wall. This is my ground.

I still haven't seen that one, but your description of it just keeps getting better and better. So, yeah, I don't know. I mean, Dracula seems to stay up all day and all night, so I don't think this is an issue for him. But anyway, baby Dennis is pretending to be a bat and having a lot of fun with his grandpa and his grandpa ruins it. Dracula ruins it by saying, that's not good enough. You need to actually be a bat. And then he, you know, ridicules the kid's favorite monster show because he's like, sharing and being nice? I hate that. Well, I think it's just supposed to show he's an old school monster. Back in the day, monsters weren't nice. They were mean. So he does want to set monsters back a hundred years. Yeah, he does. Dracula and Jonathan hatch a crazy plan where basically Johnny is going to take Mavis to visit his parents and Dracula is going to stay behind with baby Dennis and basically kidnap him and put him in lots of dangerous situations to try and force him to become a monster.

It's Johnny's job to keep Mavis distracted and happy, but not too happy. Okay, but he's not actually kidnapping the child because he is the one who's supposed to be taking care of the child. Except that he is actually kidnapping the child because Mavis gives specific instructions to Drac for taking care of Dennis. And these instructions include putting him back to bed so that he can get a full night's sleep and then a special diet of sliced avocado, rolled oats with apricot. Dennis also needs like a moisturizer. Yeah, I know that makes Dracula really mad. Dennis also needs a specific kind of moisturizer and 20 minutes with a nebulizer. so it sounds like dennis has like some allergies and some asthma and like nebulizer something we had a lot as kids and there was good reason for it i know but dracula hears all this and then confirms that he understands the instructions and immediately disregards them in favor of his

he does bring an avocado though yeah okay the only instruction which he partially follows throughout the entire movie is to give Dennis a whole avocado. Not sliced like Mavis specified. He just hands the kid an avocado. And as he does this, he makes fun of him for eating it. So Dracula takes Dennis to his old vampire summer camp, which has changed over the years. They now embrace safety and friendship for the little vampires. This disgusts Dracula. He hates her. he would rather chuck kids off rickety towers so he goes up to the top of a really tall rickety tower and are we are we gonna do this again did you calculate how tall i did okay so dracula chucks dennis off the top of his tower and tells him to fly and it's like a really scary and sad scene because at first dennis is like real happy about it he's like we i will say this is meant to be not a scary and sad scene but a funny scene i don't see how it was actually the entirety of one

of their early trailers was just this scene the kid took 38 seconds to fall from the top of the tower to the ground um and we can use that time to calculate the height of the tower knowing you know the speed of acceleration due to the earth's gravity um it turns out that the tower is 23 229 feet tall which is about 4.4 miles tall oh man the burj khalifa is only like like less than two miles tall i think yes the world's tallest building the burj khalifa is not even anywhere near two miles tall it's only 2720 feet tall so this is like oh it's like 10 burj khalifas tall it's unbelievably gigantic um and it's a pretty awesome tower they have at that camp it is pretty awesome and i just gotta say dracula's uh he is a hard man throwing a child off of this the world's tallest structure um i feel like the child might have needed like an oxygen tank up yeah yeah i mean they basically like climbed like two-thirds of the way up mount everest

it's pretty crazy mount everest is 29,030 feet tall which is 5.5 miles well then this thing isn't that tall the tower is near the height of mount everest which is pretty insane especially when you consider the height of mount everest is calculated from sea level to the top of the mountain and the ground around mount everest is nowhere near sea level so yeah it's true and he just barely manages to save the kid like literally inches from the ground and afterwards the camp counselor is like aghast and he's like this is horrible uh he even says i have to report child endangerment to the authorities which to me indicates that the people making this movie knew exactly what they were doing like dracula is clearly abusing this kid and his daughter you threw a child off of our mount everest tower that's not what it's for i'm not even sure what it's for well i mean to be fair to them they've clearly locked that tower down like it's surrounded

by like fences with barbed wire and it's like got signs up that say no admittance like do not enter and stuff i'll bet that um hunter from fall would love to climb that thing oh dude no she would love to make her friend who is terrified of heights climb that thing oh boy she is my cherry pie um johnny receives a video of his child almost falling to his death and he just watches it and he's like whoa this kid's a little daredevil and then mavis sees it and she's like is that our kid and he's like oh um oops uh i just deleted it instead of like doing anything to try and save his kid he's like i can't let my wife see this yeah your child was just dropped from the top of mount everest you're just like cool he's a little daredevil um so mavis calls again to find out what's going on and drag lies some more says they're having a cookout at the hotel he says the police sirens are wailing banshees and i gotta say mavis is really really

cool here um she turns into a bat and literally flies across the entire ocean and most of europe and most of america because she's in california um while carrying her husband and all of their luggage uh to get back to their kid within like an hour well if we calculate drax speed based on how quickly he was able to catch dennis um i think their speed would probably be pretty insane so yeah it would be um it would probably be too much for den sorry for johnny though like i i feel like all of his blood would like pool at the back of his brain he would just die at those vampires boys love blood oh yeah he's probably drinking it keeping him alive around here is where dracula is rushing back to the mansion and he has to blow up blobby um and use him as a balloon so they can fly on his back and dennis loves flying around with his grandpa and i think this scene's important because dracula is like now this is flying denisovich and dennis is like yeah like a vampire

and they both seem genuinely happy to be flying together and he's proud of dennis even though Dennis is not able to be a vampire like he wanted. What a good resolution. I'm assuming the movie ends there and doesn't throw all that away. I know. I feel like they thought about it, but then they're like, no, we have to make Dracula the winner. Dracula finds out that Mavis has stupidly invited her human butchering grandfather Vlad to the birthday party. So Vlad gets there, He decides they need to scare the fangs out of Dennis. I don't know why Mavis hasn't turned Johnny into a vampire yet. Unless she doesn't really want to be married to him forever. Well, it kind of seems like vampires can't make other vampires except through the wet method. Whoa. Dude. Wow. Let's not get into this. By which I mean that they don't seem to be able to turn humans into vampires. They have baby vampires. I don't know.

I mean, you may be right. Johnny lies to Mavis when Vlad is possessing a cakey monster to try and scare Dennis. Johnny telling lies? Telling lies, exactly. Mavis is like, this doesn't look like the TV show. And Johnny's like, oh, yeah, yeah, I saw it. It was in the extras on the Blu-ray. Dennis, of course, gets his fangs and becomes a vampire while fighting these elder vampire bats. Dennis then asks, so if I'm a vampire, can we stay here? And Mavis just says, yes. With that one word, reaffirming that Dennis was the problem and the problem's fixed. So now we can stay and be happy. The problem wasn't her dad being dangerous and doing horrible things. It was just that Dennis wasn't a vampire. And with that one word, she concludes her entire fight for freedom. And she basically condemns herself to a life of abuse and being dominated by her dad and husband and whatever dangerous, horrific, self-serving plans they come up with.

Dracula never once in either of these movies had to pay for his disgusting actions or worldviews. Well, at least it had a happy ending. No. i just have to point out that clearly humans can live with monsters you see it several times throughout the the movies right like when johnny and mavis go to california um johnny's parents bring all the human monster couples over to the house and they hang out just to show that like yeah humans and monsters are getting together all the time and it's fine living with monsters isn't the problem living with dracula is the problem like living with dracula is extremely dangerous and difficult i guess as a cautionary tale it's a it's a good message and i'm glad they glad they put that message in there to caution us against being like drac despite all that i kind of do like the hotel transylvania movies like i think it's not it's not often you find a children's movie

that's all about child abuse so yeah it's really interesting that's all dracula does if he's not abusing his child he's abusing someone else's child i'm like what's wrong with this guy pick on someone your own size you old weirdo i think it's a valid interpretation i don't think very many people find this interpretation in it but now that i've heard it three times whoa i guess i can't say no well and also i think it would be hypocritical of me to be you know very anti-abuela in a canto and be pro dracula in this movie i love when you sum up these episodes in a way that our whole audience will understand so yeah sure i i can accept this interpretation counterpoint is there any other interpretation like what else could you how how else would you interpret these movies i mean only sing once that is that is the message all i got out of the first hotel transylvania after watching and i did not like it i was just like all i got out of it was the only zing once and that's a stupid message

that's a pretty stupid message if you like our podcast feel free to leave us a review uh or or share share us with your friends subscribe like um if you didn't like this episode if you want us to keep doing what we do uh this is a completely independent podcast we don't have any sponsors. And, you know, if you like it, if you want us to keep doing it, then you can show your support over on Patreon. We really appreciate it. Oh, happy Halloween, everybody. This is our Halloween special. Oh, until next time, everybody remember, the popcorn isn't real.

Is quite what it seems We're the fools in a midnight reel The popcorn isn't real Chasing clues through the silver screen Wishing for a tale that's unseen Hold my hand through this hazy spiel The popcorn isn't real Behind the curtain, there's nothing to feel The popcorn isn't real Caught in a moment, that will never heal The popcorn isn't real The craft of fiction within fiction's mind Searching for secrets we'll never find Every clue, just a future we steal The popcorn isn't real We whisper theories, but they all fade A fleeting ghost in a midnight parade Holding on to that surreal appeal The popcorn isn't real Behind the curtain, there's nothing to feel The popcorn isn't real Caught in a moment that will never heal The popcorn isn't real

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