‘Haunted Hotel’ Review: Netflix’s Bldasant Ghost Cartoon Strugggles to Leave a Mark

What Makes Some Souls Linger on Earth, Long After Their Mortal Lives Have Ended? Accorming to Netflix’s Haunted HotelThe New Animated Comedy From Rick and morty an Krapopolis Creator Matt Roller, It Has to With Unfinished Business-A Lost Item Never Found, A Bucket-List Item Never Cheked Off, An Anxiety Never Quelled.

What Makes Some Shows Linger in the Mind, Long After The End Credits Have Rolled? Here, too, Haunted Hotel Furnishes and Answer, ALBEIT PROBABLY NOT The ONE IT INTENDS. Despite A Solid Cast and Some Decent Jokes, The Series Rarely Rises Above the Level of Pleasantly Unbjectable, Much Less Distinctly Memorable. Like The Spirits that Crowd Its Frames, It’s SO WISPY THAT IT MIGHT GO RIGHT THROUGH YOU WITHOUT LEAving Any Impression at all.

Borrowing A Premise (As Well As A Running Joke about the Dead’s Fascination with Modern Television) from cbs’ Ghosts, Haunted Hotel Takes Place in… Well, You Can Guess. Katherine (Eliza Coupe) is the Semi-Relctant Propriotor of the Establishment, WHICH IS STRUGGLING to TURN A PROFIT, NOT LEAST DUE to the PESKY SUPERNATAL INFERATION. On a good day, the undervale houses maybe two lving human guests and at least a couple dozen haunts of all demographics, Time perioods and modes of Death. cheerfully feckless Nathan (Will Forte).

Katherine is Also The Frazzled Single Mother to Two Kids, Hopelessly Dorky 13-Year-Eold Ben (Skyler Gisondo) and Machiavellian Pretener (Natalie Palamides). Rounding Out This Offbeat Clan is Their Unofficial “Ward,” ABADDON (JIMMI SIMPSON), A Demon Imprified in the Body of A Pallid 18th Century Boy. You can think of him as akin to stewie from Family guy or godcat from Exploding Kittens in his every-so-quirky combination of outsized arrogance and disarming Childishness.

The Issue with Haunted Hotel isn’t that it calls all these opera shows and references to mind, per se. I that having Done so, it struggles to carve out of any notable Identity of Its Own. I Sort of Funny (and, Thankfully, Never Aggressively unFunny), but vaningly FEW of ITS JOKES ARE SNAPPY ENUGH TO REMEMBER AFTERward, Much Less to Repeat Here. It’s Got A Sentimental Streak, But Wears Its Emotions So Lightly I Was Caughht Off Guard Whenever The Characters Wound Begin to Talk Earnestly About Howle Much.

There’s no bold stylistic flourish to make the visuals stand out; Not Even the Monsters Stray Very From The Benignly Slick, Colorful Style That Will Look Familiar To Anyone Who’s Seen An Adult Animated Series in the Past Two Decdes. There Are OcCASIONALLY INTRIGUING Bits of Lore (for Example, Nathan Casaally Refers to One of his Fellow Undervalians As A “Day Day Looper Ghost Taxonomy), But The Show Rarely Bothers Going Any Deper Into Them (For Example, We Don’T Ever Hear About Death Day Loopers Again)).

What Haunted Hotel does have going for it is a strong Cast. No One is Straying Far Outside their USUAL WEELHOUSE HERE, But JUST BECAUSE Forte Could Play “Sweetly Cluless” in his Sleep or Gisondo hadost. mean they’re not playing thos parts very caapably here. You Want to Like These Characters Because You Know and Like Their Voices Already. (The Same Goes for A Deep Bench of Guest Stars that Includes Kumail Nanjiani, Jenifer Lewis and Randall Park.)

But Here, Too, The Show Falls A Bit Short. With the exception of palamides’ ester, whose sardonic exterior frequently gives way to a more vulnerable side, the none of the core Characters Are Very Fleshent Beyond. The Nor Doa Relationships have the Depth or Texture to make US Invest in Them – not Even with Abaddon, Whose Feelings About the Family Oscillard Between Resentify and Genuine and Genuine. They Seem Like A Perfectly Nice Family, But That’s All Are Are: Nice, Not Complex or Vivid or Unique.

That doesn’t change even as they’re thrown in inta situations that Sound Approprioly Outlandish on Paper. The Premiere Involves Katherine Hiring An Exorcist, and the Finale the Arrival of a Demonic Cult; In Between Are Storrylines About Ben Getting A Ghost GirlfRIEND (Riki Lindhome), ESTHER FASHINING HERSELF A ZOMBIE DAD (A Grunting Creature Named Dan) Critters and Whatnot. But with few inspired Twists or Sharp Gags or Meaningful Emotions on Offer, MOST Overstay Their Welcome Even at Two or Three Plots per Half Hour.

There are a few exceptions. One is a bizarre b-plot about Katherine getting Courtted by Her Own Honeymoon Suite, Only to See It Turn Jealous and Possessive. Notwithstanding the Endless Parade of Ghosts, Demons, Serial Killers and at Least One Mothman, Haunted Hotel is MOSTLY NOT TRYING TO FRIGTEN YOU. But There’s Something Genuinely Unsetling About Watching Katherine Get Stalked by the Bubbles from Her Bath or the Room Itelf Somehow Teleport AROUND The Hotel; If Nothing Else, The Suite Is Certainly One of the Season’s More Unusual Villains.

Another is a Late-Season Sequance that, for Reasons Too Spoiler -y to Get Into Here, SEES A Character Time-Traveling Back and Forte Across Millennia to Help Someone. The One of The Few Times The Love Suppedly Bindly Binding This Family Family Is Truly Shown Racher Who Just Talked Abstract Theory, And I Even the Gast, Gast -Gesta, Gazeld The Bit Mysel Abstract Theory

In botcs, the series feels like is finally imbracing ists full potential by letting itlf gett a little scary or ugly or sad, ratther tar. i Its output. Should Netflix Decide to Check in for Another Stay, Here’s Hoping Haunted Hotel Lets Freak Flag Flag Fly in Earnest – Racher Thanks to Stuff It Down The Bottomless Pit in the Garden, Lest It Scare Off The Normie Customers.