NinadeL

The 15th Monster High film was the last one for a long time, thankfully. Electrified is the follow-up to Welcome to Monster High and it's a sad state of affairs. The unnecessarily negative Moanica and her zombies are supposed to replace the previously clever and sympathetic zombie Ghoulia Yelps, the other characters left over from past times are mostly extremely OOC... The whole thing is too focused on social media and even the fashion isn't as fun and monstrous as it used to be, and instead, it's just overly colorful. However, despite this bad swan song aftertaste, I'm quite looking forward to the upcoming feature film, which should be released in 2022. After all, after five years, the old wrongs could be forgotten.

The 14th Monster High film is unfortunately a pretty insensitive reboot. While the last "normal" installment of the film series in the original Great Scarrier Reef animation was released back in March 2016, this new reboot arrived in August 2016. There hasn't been enough time for a new generation to grow up or for the original fan base to tire. Yet a new origin came out, Draculaura became the main character, Frankie lost the basic hallmark of a newcomer, the MH school was built from scratch... Some of the old characters were completely gone (Rochelle, Operetta, Robecca...), others were rewritten (Venus, Deuce), the relationships between them were reset (there was no romance left), and the animation style and the collectibles also changed. Moreover, the basic feel-good feeling that was inherent in MH had disappeared. No clever Munsters or Vampirina-style genre play, just a blind evolutionary branch.

The German version of the original Italian hit. The story is truly so well written that it can appeal to everyone if adapted appropriately. All national cinema can only gain by joining the phenomenon. I enjoyed this version, among other things thanks to the presence of the great Jessica Schwarz (Romy) and Karoline Herfurth (The Little Witch), and some of the points are really perfect and make you laugh. Several themes are explicitly funny and others are full of humanism. The perfect film.

The 11th Monster High film focuses on the Vondergeist Spectre, with plenty of space for Rochelle Goyle and a good Operetta line in places... Overall, we learn more about another parallel world that exists alongside MH. Of the new characters, I liked River Styxx the best. The monstrous ghost world is based on the principle of pirate adventures and the Dickensian concept of ghosts of the past, present, and future. Which is a good idea.

Another terrible adaptation of Dunayevsky's "White Acacia" (1955), this time produced by Alexander Dovzhenko's Kiev studio. It's just as futile as all those operettas produced by Lenfilm later on.

A great episode. Lucy and Co. stage a home-grown version of Victor Herbert's operetta, with Ethel Mertz as the unexpected star. Desi's no match for Nelson Eddy, but that Lucy's going all gypsy queen again :D :D :D

The Lighthouse is undoubtedly a remarkable experience. A film composed of black and white shots in the classic aspect ratio, full of magical realism turning into naturalism. Even its language is different, and the script is inspired by the language of real 19th-century sailors and the unfinished short story by E. A. Poe. The result is certainly worthy of attention, but it is open to debate whether pure naturalism would be a more appropriate form.

An overlong series about the single affair from Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee's brief marriage. By any measure, it's a show that makes a fetish out of the 1990s, VHS porn, the beginnings of the internet (the Lees' first encounter with the internet takes place in a public library), the makeup artists have also gone all out, and finally, the question of guilt and innocence is raised. The world has changed, even porn stars are giving etiquette speeches on today's shows. Well, at least on Hulu. The flashbacks from when Pam started shooting for Playboy at a very young age are beautiful. Her affair is interesting in retrospect, especially on the issue of media, law, and technology. Still, I think a max two-part TV movie would have been more than enough. There has been and will be more than enough thematic material. Soon, a documentary will pop up on Netflix, a new edition of Barb Wire will be released, and the entire internet will once again view Playboy covers from 1989-2016, and then it will all be over again.

The 13th Monster High movie completes the first generation of 3D movies from the brand. The core fans happily found their way to an underwater adventure starring Lagoon Blue. A number of popular monsters acquired fins, which of course inspired a new line of collectible toys, including such pearls as the double-headed Peri & Pearl and the Posei Reef with tentacles. The story is a classic journey of forgiveness and a literal fulfillment of the MH motto "be yourself, be unique, be a monster" :) Connoisseurs of the concurrent Barbie film series will certainly find similarities with such adventures as Barbie in A Mermaid Tale or Barbie Fairytopia: Mermaidia.

The 6th Monster High movie is an excellent Halloween spectacle. Our group learns about a secret room in the catacombs beneath the school and helps to mend relations between monsters and humans in the shared city of Salem. Some of the events are like something cut from various Scream films mixed with The Addams Family, and it works just fine. At the end, of course, the main group shows off some new monstrously fabulous models. Unfortunately, my favorite supporting characters only nod their heads.